And when this one too, after being beaten down by the tortures, died, the fifth sprang up, saying
The Koine Bible
The Scriptures in Greek with direct English translation.
Rahlfs Septuagint
4 Maccabees 11
Greek text followed verse by verse by a direct English translation.
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I do not intend, tyrant, to beg off from the torment for the sake of virtue.
δ᾿ ἀπ᾿ ἐμαυτοῦ παρῆλθον ὅπως κἀμὲ κατακτείνας περὶ πλειόνων ἀδικημάτων ὀφειλήσῃς τῇ οὐρανίῳ δίκῃ τιμωρίαν
But I myself came of my own accord, so that by killing me also you might owe to the heavenly justice punishment for greater acts of injustice.
O hater of virtue and hater of mankind, why do you ravage us in this way, after what we have done?
for we reverence the Creator of all and live according to his virtuous law
but these things, being honors, are not worthy of tortures
But as he was saying such things, the guards, having bound him, dragged him to the catapult.
ὃν δήσαντες αὐτὸν ἐπὶ τὰ γόνατα καὶ ταῦτα ποδάγραις σιδηραῖς ἐφαρμόσαντες τὴν ὀσφὺν αὐτοῦ περὶ τροχιαῖον σφῆνα κατέκαμψαν περὶ ὃν ὅλος περὶ τὸν τροχὸν σκορπίου τρόπον ἀνακλώμενος ἐξεμελίζετο
On which, having bound him on his knees and fitting his waist to an iron wedge with these gouty irons, they bent him around the wheel, around which, being bent back all around the wheel like the way of a scorpion, he was dislocated through and through
In this way also the spirit being distressed and the body being strangled
ἔλεγεν ἄκων ὦ τύραννε χάριτας ἡμῖν χαρίζῃ διὰ γενναιοτέρων πόνων ἐπιδείξασθαι παρέχων τὴν εἰς τὸν νόμον ἡμῶν καρτερίαν
You speak good favors unwillingly, O tyrant, granting us by nobler labors to display, providing the endurance toward our law.
δὲ καὶ τούτου ὁ ἕκτος ἤγετο μειρακίσκος ὃς πυνθανομένου τοῦ τυράννου εἰ βούλοιτο φαγὼν ἀπολύεσθαι ὁ δὲ ἔφη
And when this one also had died, the sixth was led, a youth, whom the tyrant, asking whether he wished, after eating, to be released, but he said:
I am younger than my brothers in age, but in thought their equal in age
For having been born and brought up for the same things, we ought likewise to die for the same things.
So that if it seems good to you to torture me, torture me though I do not eat defiled things.
When he had said these things, they brought him to the wheel.
On which, being stretched out carefully and being dislocated, he was burned underneath
ὀβελίσκους ὀξεῖς πυρώσαντες τοῖς νώτοις προσέφερον καὶ τὰ πλευρὰ διαπείραντες αὐτοῦ τὰ σπλάγχνα διέκαιον
And after heating sharp spits, they brought them to his back, and piercing his sides they burned his entrails
δὲ βασανιζόμενος ὦ ἱεροπρεποῦς ἀγῶνος ἔλεγεν ἐφ᾿ ὃν διὰ τὴν εὐσέβειαν εἰς γυμνασίαν πόνων ἀδελφοὶ τοσοῦτοι κληθέντες οὐκ ἐνικήθημεν
And the one being tortured said, O sacred contest, on account of which so many brothers having been called for the training of pains because of piety, we were not conquered.
For godly knowledge, O tyrant, is invincible.
equipped with noble goodness, I too will die with my brothers
greatly against you, and he himself hurling a new avenger of torments and enemy of those who truly are godly
We have freed your tyranny with six young men.
γὰρ μὴ δυνηθῆναί σε μεταπεῖσαι τὸν λογισμὸν ἡμῶν μήτε βιάσασθαι πρὸς τὴν μιαροφαγίαν οὐ κατάλυσίς ἐστίν σου
For not being able to persuade our reasoning nor to force us to unclean eating is not your downfall.
Your fire is cold to us, and your catapults are painless, and your violence is powerless.
For not of a tyrant but of a divine law our bodyguards are set over us; for this reason we have an unconquerable reasoning.