19Then Job answered:
2‘How long will you torment me,
and break me in pieces with words?
3These ten times you have cast reproach upon me;
are you not ashamed to wrong me?
4And even if it is true that I have erred,
my error remains with me.
5If indeed you magnify yourselves against me,
and make my humiliation an argument against me,
6know then that God has put me in the wrong,
and closed his net around me.
7Even when I cry out, “Violence!” I am not answered;
I call aloud, but there is no justice.
8He has walled up my way so that I cannot pass,
and he has set darkness upon my paths.
9He has stripped my glory from me,
and taken the crown from my head.
10He breaks me down on every side, and I am gone,
he has uprooted my hope like a tree.
11He has kindled his wrath against me,
and counts me as his adversary.
12His troops come on together;
they have thrown up siege-works* against me,
and encamp around my tent.
13‘He has put my family far from me,
and my acquaintances are wholly estranged from me.
14My relatives and my close friends have failed me;
15 the guests in my house have forgotten me;
my serving-girls count me as a stranger;
I have become an alien in their eyes.
16I call to my servant, but he gives me no answer;
I must myself plead with him.
17My breath is repulsive to my wife;
I am loathsome to my own family.
18Even young children despise me;
when I rise, they talk against me.
19All my intimate friends abhor me,
and those whom I loved have turned against me.
20My bones cling to my skin and to my flesh,
and I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.
21Have pity on me, have pity on me, O you my friends,
for the hand of God has touched me!
22Why do you, like God, pursue me,
never satisfied with my flesh?
23‘O that my words were written down!
O that they were inscribed in a book!
24O that with an iron pen and with lead
they were engraved on a rock for ever!
25For I know that my Redeemer* lives,
and that at the last he* will stand upon the earth;*
26and after my skin has been thus destroyed,
then in* my flesh I shall see God,*
27whom I shall see on my side,*
and my eyes shall behold, and not another.
My heart faints within me!
28If you say, “How we will persecute him!”
and, “The root of the matter is found in him”;
29be afraid of the sword,
for wrath brings the punishment of the sword,
so that you may know there is a judgement.’
Zophar Speaks: Wickedness Receives Just Retribution20Then Zophar the Naamathite answered:
2‘Pay attention! My thoughts urge me to answer,
because of the agitation within me.
3I hear censure that insults me,
and a spirit beyond my understanding answers me.
4Do you not know this from of old,
ever since mortals were placed on earth,
5that the exulting of the wicked is short,
and the joy of the godless is but for a moment?
6Even though they mount up high as the heavens,
and their head reaches to the clouds,
7they will perish for ever like their own dung;
those who have seen them will say, “Where are they?”
8They will fly away like a dream, and not be found;
they will be chased away like a vision of the night.
9The eye that saw them will see them no more,
nor will their place behold them any longer.
10Their children will seek the favour of the poor,
and their hands will give back their wealth.
11Their bodies, once full of youth,
will lie down in the dust with them.
12‘Though wickedness is sweet in their mouth,
though they hide it under their tongues,
13though they are loath to let it go,
and hold it in their mouths,
14yet their food is turned in their stomachs;
it is the venom of asps within them.
15They swallow down riches and vomit them up again;
God casts them out of their bellies.
16They will suck the poison of asps;
the tongue of a viper will kill them.
17They will not look on the rivers,
the streams flowing with honey and curds.
18They will give back the fruit of their toil,
and will not swallow it down;
from the profit of their trading
they will get no enjoyment.
19For they have crushed and abandoned the poor,
they have seized a house that they did not build.
20‘They knew no quiet in their bellies;
in their greed they let nothing escape.
21There was nothing left after they had eaten;
therefore their prosperity will not endure.
22In full sufficiency they will be in distress;
all the force of misery will come upon them.
23To fill their belly to the full
God* will send his fierce anger into them,
and rain it upon them as their food.*
24They will flee from an iron weapon;
a bronze arrow will strike them through.
25It is drawn forth and comes out of their body,
and the glittering point comes out of their gall;
terrors come upon them.
26Utter darkness is laid up for their treasures;
a fire fanned by no one will devour them;
what is left in their tent will be consumed.
27The heavens will reveal their iniquity,
and the earth will rise up against them.
28The possessions of their house will be carried away,
dragged off on the day of God’s* wrath.
29This is the portion of the wicked from God,
the heritage decreed for them by God.’
Job Replies: The Wicked Often Go Unpunished21Then Job answered:
2‘Listen carefully to my words,
and let this be your consolation.
3Bear with me, and I will speak;
then after I have spoken, mock on.
4As for me, is my complaint addressed to mortals?
Why should I not be impatient?
5Look at me, and be appalled,
and lay your hand upon your mouth.
6When I think of it I am dismayed,
and shuddering seizes my flesh.
7Why do the wicked live on,
reach old age, and grow mighty in power?
8Their children are established in their presence,
and their offspring before their eyes.
9Their houses are safe from fear,
and no rod of God is upon them.
10Their bull breeds without fail;
their cow calves and never miscarries.
11They send out their little ones like a flock,
and their children dance around.
12They sing to the tambourine and the lyre,
and rejoice to the sound of the pipe.
13They spend their days in prosperity,
and in peace they go down to Sheol.
14They say to God, “Leave us alone!
We do not desire to know your ways.
15What is the Almighty,* that we should serve him?
And what profit do we get if we pray to him?”
16Is not their prosperity indeed their own achievement?*
The plans of the wicked are repugnant to me.
17‘How often is the lamp of the wicked put out?
How often does calamity come upon them?
How often does God* distribute pains in his anger?
18How often are they like straw before the wind,
and like chaff that the storm carries away?
19You say, “God stores up their iniquity for their children.”
Let it be paid back to them, so that they may know it.
20Let their own eyes see their destruction,
and let them drink of the wrath of the Almighty.*
21For what do they care for their household after them,
when the number of their months is cut off?
22Will any teach God knowledge,
seeing that he judges those that are on high?
23One dies in full prosperity,
being wholly at ease and secure,
24his loins full of milk
and the marrow of his bones moist.
25Another dies in bitterness of soul,
never having tasted of good.
26They lie down alike in the dust,
and the worms cover them.
27‘Oh, I know your thoughts,
and your schemes to wrong me.
28For you say, “Where is the house of the prince?
Where is the tent in which the wicked lived?”
29Have you not asked those who travel the roads,
and do you not accept their testimony,
30that the wicked are spared on the day of calamity,
and are rescued on the day of wrath?
31Who declares their way to their face,
and who repays them for what they have done?
32When they are carried to the grave,
a watch is kept over their tomb.
33The clods of the valley are sweet to them;
everyone will follow after,
and those who went before are innumerable.
34How then will you comfort me with empty nothings?
There is nothing left of your answers but falsehood.’
Friday, May 22, 2009
May 24 Job 15-18
15Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered:
2‘Should the wise answer with windy knowledge,
and fill themselves with the east wind?
3Should they argue in unprofitable talk,
or in words with which they can do no good?
4But you are doing away with the fear of God,
and hindering meditation before God.
5For your iniquity teaches your mouth,
and you choose the tongue of the crafty.
6Your own mouth condemns you, and not I;
your own lips testify against you.
7‘Are you the firstborn of the human race?
Were you brought forth before the hills?
8Have you listened in the council of God?
And do you limit wisdom to yourself?
9What do you know that we do not know?
What do you understand that is not clear to us?
10The grey-haired and the aged are on our side,
those older than your father.
11Are the consolations of God too small for you,
or the word that deals gently with you?
12Why does your heart carry you away,
and why do your eyes flash,*
13so that you turn your spirit against God,
and let such words go out of your mouth?
14What are mortals, that they can be clean?
Or those born of woman, that they can be righteous?
15God puts no trust even in his holy ones,
and the heavens are not clean in his sight;
16how much less one who is abominable and corrupt,
one who drinks iniquity like water!
17‘I will show you; listen to me;
what I have seen I will declare—
18what sages have told,
and their ancestors have not hidden,
19to whom alone the land was given,
and no stranger passed among them.
20The wicked writhe in pain all their days,
through all the years that are laid up for the ruthless.
21Terrifying sounds are in their ears;
in prosperity the destroyer will come upon them.
22They despair of returning from darkness,
and they are destined for the sword.
23They wander abroad for bread, saying, “Where is it?”
They know that a day of darkness is ready at hand;
24distress and anguish terrify them;
they prevail against them, like a king prepared for battle.
25Because they stretched out their hands against God,
and bid defiance to the Almighty,*
26running stubbornly against him
with a thick-bossed shield;
27because they have covered their faces with their fat,
and gathered fat upon their loins,
28they will live in desolate cities,
in houses that no one should inhabit,
houses destined to become heaps of ruins;
29they will not be rich, and their wealth will not endure,
nor will they strike root in the earth;*
30they will not escape from darkness;
the flame will dry up their shoots,
and their blossom* will be swept away* by the wind.
31Let them not trust in emptiness, deceiving themselves;
for emptiness will be their recompense.
32It will be paid in full before their time,
and their branch will not be green.
33They will shake off their unripe grape, like the vine,
and cast off their blossoms, like the olive tree.
34For the company of the godless is barren,
and fire consumes the tents of bribery.
35They conceive mischief and bring forth evil
and their heart prepares deceit.’
Job Reaffirms His Innocence16Then Job answered:
2‘I have heard many such things;
miserable comforters are you all.
3Have windy words no limit?
Or what provokes you that you keep on talking?
4I also could talk as you do,
if you were in my place;
I could join words together against you,
and shake my head at you.
5I could encourage you with my mouth,
and the solace of my lips would assuage your pain.
6‘If I speak, my pain is not assuaged,
and if I forbear, how much of it leaves me?
7Surely now God has worn me out;
he has* made desolate all my company.
8And he has* shrivelled me up,
which is a witness against me;
my leanness has risen up against me,
and it testifies to my face.
9He has torn me in his wrath, and hated me;
he has gnashed his teeth at me;
my adversary sharpens his eyes against me.
10They have gaped at me with their mouths;
they have struck me insolently on the cheek;
they mass themselves together against me.
11God gives me up to the ungodly,
and casts me into the hands of the wicked.
12I was at ease, and he broke me in two;
he seized me by the neck and dashed me to pieces;
he set me up as his target;
13 his archers surround me.
He slashes open my kidneys, and shows no mercy;
he pours out my gall on the ground.
14He bursts upon me again and again;
he rushes at me like a warrior.
15I have sewed sackcloth upon my skin,
and have laid my strength in the dust.
16My face is red with weeping,
and deep darkness is on my eyelids,
17though there is no violence in my hands,
and my prayer is pure.
18‘O earth, do not cover my blood;
let my outcry find no resting-place.
19Even now, in fact, my witness is in heaven,
and he that vouches for me is on high.
20My friends scorn me;
my eye pours out tears to God,
21that he would maintain the right of a mortal with God,
as* one does for a neighbour.
22For when a few years have come,
I shall go the way from which I shall not return.
Job Prays for Relief17My spirit is broken, my days are extinct,
the grave is ready for me.
2Surely there are mockers around me,
and my eye dwells on their provocation.
3‘Lay down a pledge for me with yourself;
who is there that will give surety for me?
4Since you have closed their minds to understanding,
therefore you will not let them triumph.
5Those who denounce friends for reward—
the eyes of their children will fail.
6‘He has made me a byword of the peoples,
and I am one before whom people spit.
7My eye has grown dim from grief,
and all my members are like a shadow.
8The upright are appalled at this,
and the innocent stir themselves up against the godless.
9Yet the righteous hold to their way,
and they that have clean hands grow stronger and stronger.
10But you, come back now, all of you,
and I shall not find a sensible person among you.
11My days are past, my plans are broken off,
the desires of my heart.
12They make night into day;
“The light”, they say, “is near to the darkness.”*
13If I look for Sheol as my house,
if I spread my couch in darkness,
14if I say to the Pit, “You are my father”,
and to the worm, “My mother”, or “My sister”,
15where then is my hope?
Who will see my hope?
16Will it go down to the bars of Sheol?
Shall we descend together into the dust?’
Bildad Speaks: God Punishes the Wicked18Then Bildad the Shuhite answered:
2‘How long will you hunt for words?
Consider, and then we shall speak.
3Why are we counted as cattle?
Why are we stupid in your sight?
4You who tear yourself in your anger—
shall the earth be forsaken because of you,
or the rock be removed out of its place?
5‘Surely the light of the wicked is put out,
and the flame of their fire does not shine.
6The light is dark in their tent,
and the lamp above them is put out.
7Their strong steps are shortened,
and their own schemes throw them down.
8For they are thrust into a net by their own feet,
and they walk into a pitfall.
9A trap seizes them by the heel;
a snare lays hold of them.
10A rope is hid for them in the ground,
a trap for them in the path.
11Terrors frighten them on every side,
and chase them at their heels.
12Their strength is consumed by hunger,*
and calamity is ready for their stumbling.
13By disease their skin is consumed,*
the firstborn of Death consumes their limbs.
14They are torn from the tent in which they trusted,
and are brought to the king of terrors.
15In their tents nothing remains;
sulphur is scattered upon their habitations.
16Their roots dry up beneath,
and their branches wither above.
17Their memory perishes from the earth,
and they have no name in the street.
18They are thrust from light into darkness,
and driven out of the world.
19They have no offspring or descendant among their people,
and no survivor where they used to live.
20They of the west are appalled at their fate,
and horror seizes those of the east.
21Surely such are the dwellings of the ungodly,
such is the place of those who do not know God.’
2‘Should the wise answer with windy knowledge,
and fill themselves with the east wind?
3Should they argue in unprofitable talk,
or in words with which they can do no good?
4But you are doing away with the fear of God,
and hindering meditation before God.
5For your iniquity teaches your mouth,
and you choose the tongue of the crafty.
6Your own mouth condemns you, and not I;
your own lips testify against you.
7‘Are you the firstborn of the human race?
Were you brought forth before the hills?
8Have you listened in the council of God?
And do you limit wisdom to yourself?
9What do you know that we do not know?
What do you understand that is not clear to us?
10The grey-haired and the aged are on our side,
those older than your father.
11Are the consolations of God too small for you,
or the word that deals gently with you?
12Why does your heart carry you away,
and why do your eyes flash,*
13so that you turn your spirit against God,
and let such words go out of your mouth?
14What are mortals, that they can be clean?
Or those born of woman, that they can be righteous?
15God puts no trust even in his holy ones,
and the heavens are not clean in his sight;
16how much less one who is abominable and corrupt,
one who drinks iniquity like water!
17‘I will show you; listen to me;
what I have seen I will declare—
18what sages have told,
and their ancestors have not hidden,
19to whom alone the land was given,
and no stranger passed among them.
20The wicked writhe in pain all their days,
through all the years that are laid up for the ruthless.
21Terrifying sounds are in their ears;
in prosperity the destroyer will come upon them.
22They despair of returning from darkness,
and they are destined for the sword.
23They wander abroad for bread, saying, “Where is it?”
They know that a day of darkness is ready at hand;
24distress and anguish terrify them;
they prevail against them, like a king prepared for battle.
25Because they stretched out their hands against God,
and bid defiance to the Almighty,*
26running stubbornly against him
with a thick-bossed shield;
27because they have covered their faces with their fat,
and gathered fat upon their loins,
28they will live in desolate cities,
in houses that no one should inhabit,
houses destined to become heaps of ruins;
29they will not be rich, and their wealth will not endure,
nor will they strike root in the earth;*
30they will not escape from darkness;
the flame will dry up their shoots,
and their blossom* will be swept away* by the wind.
31Let them not trust in emptiness, deceiving themselves;
for emptiness will be their recompense.
32It will be paid in full before their time,
and their branch will not be green.
33They will shake off their unripe grape, like the vine,
and cast off their blossoms, like the olive tree.
34For the company of the godless is barren,
and fire consumes the tents of bribery.
35They conceive mischief and bring forth evil
and their heart prepares deceit.’
Job Reaffirms His Innocence16Then Job answered:
2‘I have heard many such things;
miserable comforters are you all.
3Have windy words no limit?
Or what provokes you that you keep on talking?
4I also could talk as you do,
if you were in my place;
I could join words together against you,
and shake my head at you.
5I could encourage you with my mouth,
and the solace of my lips would assuage your pain.
6‘If I speak, my pain is not assuaged,
and if I forbear, how much of it leaves me?
7Surely now God has worn me out;
he has* made desolate all my company.
8And he has* shrivelled me up,
which is a witness against me;
my leanness has risen up against me,
and it testifies to my face.
9He has torn me in his wrath, and hated me;
he has gnashed his teeth at me;
my adversary sharpens his eyes against me.
10They have gaped at me with their mouths;
they have struck me insolently on the cheek;
they mass themselves together against me.
11God gives me up to the ungodly,
and casts me into the hands of the wicked.
12I was at ease, and he broke me in two;
he seized me by the neck and dashed me to pieces;
he set me up as his target;
13 his archers surround me.
He slashes open my kidneys, and shows no mercy;
he pours out my gall on the ground.
14He bursts upon me again and again;
he rushes at me like a warrior.
15I have sewed sackcloth upon my skin,
and have laid my strength in the dust.
16My face is red with weeping,
and deep darkness is on my eyelids,
17though there is no violence in my hands,
and my prayer is pure.
18‘O earth, do not cover my blood;
let my outcry find no resting-place.
19Even now, in fact, my witness is in heaven,
and he that vouches for me is on high.
20My friends scorn me;
my eye pours out tears to God,
21that he would maintain the right of a mortal with God,
as* one does for a neighbour.
22For when a few years have come,
I shall go the way from which I shall not return.
Job Prays for Relief17My spirit is broken, my days are extinct,
the grave is ready for me.
2Surely there are mockers around me,
and my eye dwells on their provocation.
3‘Lay down a pledge for me with yourself;
who is there that will give surety for me?
4Since you have closed their minds to understanding,
therefore you will not let them triumph.
5Those who denounce friends for reward—
the eyes of their children will fail.
6‘He has made me a byword of the peoples,
and I am one before whom people spit.
7My eye has grown dim from grief,
and all my members are like a shadow.
8The upright are appalled at this,
and the innocent stir themselves up against the godless.
9Yet the righteous hold to their way,
and they that have clean hands grow stronger and stronger.
10But you, come back now, all of you,
and I shall not find a sensible person among you.
11My days are past, my plans are broken off,
the desires of my heart.
12They make night into day;
“The light”, they say, “is near to the darkness.”*
13If I look for Sheol as my house,
if I spread my couch in darkness,
14if I say to the Pit, “You are my father”,
and to the worm, “My mother”, or “My sister”,
15where then is my hope?
Who will see my hope?
16Will it go down to the bars of Sheol?
Shall we descend together into the dust?’
Bildad Speaks: God Punishes the Wicked18Then Bildad the Shuhite answered:
2‘How long will you hunt for words?
Consider, and then we shall speak.
3Why are we counted as cattle?
Why are we stupid in your sight?
4You who tear yourself in your anger—
shall the earth be forsaken because of you,
or the rock be removed out of its place?
5‘Surely the light of the wicked is put out,
and the flame of their fire does not shine.
6The light is dark in their tent,
and the lamp above them is put out.
7Their strong steps are shortened,
and their own schemes throw them down.
8For they are thrust into a net by their own feet,
and they walk into a pitfall.
9A trap seizes them by the heel;
a snare lays hold of them.
10A rope is hid for them in the ground,
a trap for them in the path.
11Terrors frighten them on every side,
and chase them at their heels.
12Their strength is consumed by hunger,*
and calamity is ready for their stumbling.
13By disease their skin is consumed,*
the firstborn of Death consumes their limbs.
14They are torn from the tent in which they trusted,
and are brought to the king of terrors.
15In their tents nothing remains;
sulphur is scattered upon their habitations.
16Their roots dry up beneath,
and their branches wither above.
17Their memory perishes from the earth,
and they have no name in the street.
18They are thrust from light into darkness,
and driven out of the world.
19They have no offspring or descendant among their people,
and no survivor where they used to live.
20They of the west are appalled at their fate,
and horror seizes those of the east.
21Surely such are the dwellings of the ungodly,
such is the place of those who do not know God.’
May 23 Job 11-14
11Then Zophar the Naamathite answered:
2‘Should a multitude of words go unanswered,
and should one full of talk be vindicated?
3Should your babble put others to silence,
and when you mock, shall no one shame you?
4For you say, “My conduct* is pure,
and I am clean in God’s* sight.”
5But O that God would speak,
and open his lips to you,
6and that he would tell you the secrets of wisdom!
For wisdom is many-sided.*
Know then that God exacts of you less than your guilt deserves.
7‘Can you find out the deep things of God?
Can you find out the limit of the Almighty?*
8It is higher than heaven*—what can you do?
Deeper than Sheol—what can you know?
9Its measure is longer than the earth,
and broader than the sea.
10If he passes through, and imprisons,
and assembles for judgement, who can hinder him?
11For he knows those who are worthless;
when he sees iniquity, will he not consider it?
12But a stupid person will get understanding,
when a wild ass is born human.*
13‘If you direct your heart rightly,
you will stretch out your hands towards him.
14If iniquity is in your hand, put it far away,
and do not let wickedness reside in your tents.
15Surely then you will lift up your face without blemish;
you will be secure, and will not fear.
16You will forget your misery;
you will remember it as waters that have passed away.
17And your life will be brighter than the noonday;
its darkness will be like the morning.
18And you will have confidence, because there is hope;
you will be protected* and take your rest in safety.
19You will lie down, and no one will make you afraid;
many will entreat your favour.
20But the eyes of the wicked will fail;
all way of escape will be lost to them,
and their hope is to breathe their last.’
Job Replies: I Am a Laughing-stock12Then Job answered:
2‘No doubt you are the people,
and wisdom will die with you.
3But I have understanding as well as you;
I am not inferior to you.
Who does not know such things as these?
4I am a laughing-stock to my friends;
I, who called upon God and he answered me,
a just and blameless man, I am a laughing-stock.
5Those at ease have contempt for misfortune,*
but it is ready for those whose feet are unstable.
6The tents of robbers are at peace,
and those who provoke God are secure,
who bring their god in their hands.*
7‘But ask the animals, and they will teach you;
the birds of the air, and they will tell you;
8ask the plants of the earth,* and they will teach you;
and the fish of the sea will declare to you.
9Who among all these does not know
that the hand of the Lord has done this?
10In his hand is the life of every living thing
and the breath of every human being.
11Does not the ear test words
as the palate tastes food?
12Is wisdom with the aged,
and understanding in length of days?
13‘With God* are wisdom and strength;
he has counsel and understanding.
14If he tears down, no one can rebuild;
if he shuts someone in, no one can open up.
15If he withholds the waters, they dry up;
if he sends them out, they overwhelm the land.
16With him are strength and wisdom;
the deceived and the deceiver are his.
17He leads counsellors away stripped,
and makes fools of judges.
18He looses the sash of kings,
and binds a waistcloth on their loins.
19He leads priests away stripped,
and overthrows the mighty.
20He deprives of speech those who are trusted,
and takes away the discernment of the elders.
21He pours contempt on princes,
and looses the belt of the strong.
22He uncovers the deeps out of darkness,
and brings deep darkness to light.
23He makes nations great, then destroys them;
he enlarges nations, then leads them away.
24He strips understanding from the leaders* of the earth,
and makes them wander in a pathless waste.
25They grope in the dark without light;
he makes them stagger like a drunkard.
13‘Look, my eye has seen all this,
my ear has heard and understood it.
2What you know, I also know;
I am not inferior to you.
3But I would speak to the Almighty,*
and I desire to argue my case with God.
4As for you, you whitewash with lies;
all of you are worthless physicians.
5If you would only keep silent,
that would be your wisdom!
6Hear now my reasoning,
and listen to the pleadings of my lips.
7Will you speak falsely for God,
and speak deceitfully for him?
8Will you show partiality towards him,
will you plead the case for God?
9Will it be well with you when he searches you out?
Or can you deceive him, as one person deceives another?
10He will surely rebuke you
if in secret you show partiality.
11Will not his majesty terrify you,
and the dread of him fall upon you?
12Your maxims are proverbs of ashes,
your defences are defences of clay.
13‘Let me have silence, and I will speak,
and let come on me what may.
14I will take my flesh in my teeth,
and put my life in my hand.*
15See, he will kill me; I have no hope;*
but I will defend my ways to his face.
16This will be my salvation,
that the godless shall not come before him.
17Listen carefully to my words,
and let my declaration be in your ears.
18I have indeed prepared my case;
I know that I shall be vindicated.
19Who is there that will contend with me?
For then I would be silent and die.
Job’s Despondent Prayer
20Only grant two things to me,
then I will not hide myself from your face:
21withdraw your hand far from me,
and do not let dread of you terrify me.
22Then call, and I will answer;
or let me speak, and you reply to me.
23How many are my iniquities and my sins?
Make me know my transgression and my sin.
24Why do you hide your face,
and count me as your enemy?
25Will you frighten a windblown leaf
and pursue dry chaff?
26For you write bitter things against me,
and make me reap* the iniquities of my youth.
27You put my feet in the stocks,
and watch all my paths;
you set a bound to the soles of my feet.
28One wastes away like a rotten thing,
like a garment that is moth-eaten.
14‘A mortal, born of woman, few of days and full of trouble,
2 comes up like a flower and withers,
flees like a shadow and does not last.
3Do you fix your eyes on such a one?
Do you bring me into judgement with you?
4Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?
No one can.
5Since their days are determined,
and the number of their months is known to you,
and you have appointed the bounds that they cannot pass,
6look away from them, and desist,*
that they may enjoy, like labourers, their days.
7‘For there is hope for a tree,
if it is cut down, that it will sprout again,
and that its shoots will not cease.
8Though its root grows old in the earth,
and its stump dies in the ground,
9yet at the scent of water it will bud
and put forth branches like a young plant.
10But mortals die, and are laid low;
humans expire, and where are they?
11As waters fail from a lake,
and a river wastes away and dries up,
12so mortals lie down and do not rise again;
until the heavens are no more, they will not awake
or be roused out of their sleep.
13O that you would hide me in Sheol,
that you would conceal me until your wrath is past,
that you would appoint me a set time, and remember me!
14If mortals die, will they live again?
All the days of my service I would wait
until my release should come.
15You would call, and I would answer you;
you would long for the work of your hands.
16For then you would not* number my steps,
you would not keep watch over my sin;
17my transgression would be sealed up in a bag,
and you would cover over my iniquity.
18‘But the mountain falls and crumbles away,
and the rock is removed from its place;
19the waters wear away the stones;
the torrents wash away the soil of the earth;
so you destroy the hope of mortals.
20You prevail for ever against them, and they pass away;
you change their countenance, and send them away.
21Their children come to honour, and they do not know it;
they are brought low, and it goes unnoticed.
22They feel only the pain of their own bodies,
and mourn only for themselves.’
2‘Should a multitude of words go unanswered,
and should one full of talk be vindicated?
3Should your babble put others to silence,
and when you mock, shall no one shame you?
4For you say, “My conduct* is pure,
and I am clean in God’s* sight.”
5But O that God would speak,
and open his lips to you,
6and that he would tell you the secrets of wisdom!
For wisdom is many-sided.*
Know then that God exacts of you less than your guilt deserves.
7‘Can you find out the deep things of God?
Can you find out the limit of the Almighty?*
8It is higher than heaven*—what can you do?
Deeper than Sheol—what can you know?
9Its measure is longer than the earth,
and broader than the sea.
10If he passes through, and imprisons,
and assembles for judgement, who can hinder him?
11For he knows those who are worthless;
when he sees iniquity, will he not consider it?
12But a stupid person will get understanding,
when a wild ass is born human.*
13‘If you direct your heart rightly,
you will stretch out your hands towards him.
14If iniquity is in your hand, put it far away,
and do not let wickedness reside in your tents.
15Surely then you will lift up your face without blemish;
you will be secure, and will not fear.
16You will forget your misery;
you will remember it as waters that have passed away.
17And your life will be brighter than the noonday;
its darkness will be like the morning.
18And you will have confidence, because there is hope;
you will be protected* and take your rest in safety.
19You will lie down, and no one will make you afraid;
many will entreat your favour.
20But the eyes of the wicked will fail;
all way of escape will be lost to them,
and their hope is to breathe their last.’
Job Replies: I Am a Laughing-stock12Then Job answered:
2‘No doubt you are the people,
and wisdom will die with you.
3But I have understanding as well as you;
I am not inferior to you.
Who does not know such things as these?
4I am a laughing-stock to my friends;
I, who called upon God and he answered me,
a just and blameless man, I am a laughing-stock.
5Those at ease have contempt for misfortune,*
but it is ready for those whose feet are unstable.
6The tents of robbers are at peace,
and those who provoke God are secure,
who bring their god in their hands.*
7‘But ask the animals, and they will teach you;
the birds of the air, and they will tell you;
8ask the plants of the earth,* and they will teach you;
and the fish of the sea will declare to you.
9Who among all these does not know
that the hand of the Lord has done this?
10In his hand is the life of every living thing
and the breath of every human being.
11Does not the ear test words
as the palate tastes food?
12Is wisdom with the aged,
and understanding in length of days?
13‘With God* are wisdom and strength;
he has counsel and understanding.
14If he tears down, no one can rebuild;
if he shuts someone in, no one can open up.
15If he withholds the waters, they dry up;
if he sends them out, they overwhelm the land.
16With him are strength and wisdom;
the deceived and the deceiver are his.
17He leads counsellors away stripped,
and makes fools of judges.
18He looses the sash of kings,
and binds a waistcloth on their loins.
19He leads priests away stripped,
and overthrows the mighty.
20He deprives of speech those who are trusted,
and takes away the discernment of the elders.
21He pours contempt on princes,
and looses the belt of the strong.
22He uncovers the deeps out of darkness,
and brings deep darkness to light.
23He makes nations great, then destroys them;
he enlarges nations, then leads them away.
24He strips understanding from the leaders* of the earth,
and makes them wander in a pathless waste.
25They grope in the dark without light;
he makes them stagger like a drunkard.
13‘Look, my eye has seen all this,
my ear has heard and understood it.
2What you know, I also know;
I am not inferior to you.
3But I would speak to the Almighty,*
and I desire to argue my case with God.
4As for you, you whitewash with lies;
all of you are worthless physicians.
5If you would only keep silent,
that would be your wisdom!
6Hear now my reasoning,
and listen to the pleadings of my lips.
7Will you speak falsely for God,
and speak deceitfully for him?
8Will you show partiality towards him,
will you plead the case for God?
9Will it be well with you when he searches you out?
Or can you deceive him, as one person deceives another?
10He will surely rebuke you
if in secret you show partiality.
11Will not his majesty terrify you,
and the dread of him fall upon you?
12Your maxims are proverbs of ashes,
your defences are defences of clay.
13‘Let me have silence, and I will speak,
and let come on me what may.
14I will take my flesh in my teeth,
and put my life in my hand.*
15See, he will kill me; I have no hope;*
but I will defend my ways to his face.
16This will be my salvation,
that the godless shall not come before him.
17Listen carefully to my words,
and let my declaration be in your ears.
18I have indeed prepared my case;
I know that I shall be vindicated.
19Who is there that will contend with me?
For then I would be silent and die.
Job’s Despondent Prayer
20Only grant two things to me,
then I will not hide myself from your face:
21withdraw your hand far from me,
and do not let dread of you terrify me.
22Then call, and I will answer;
or let me speak, and you reply to me.
23How many are my iniquities and my sins?
Make me know my transgression and my sin.
24Why do you hide your face,
and count me as your enemy?
25Will you frighten a windblown leaf
and pursue dry chaff?
26For you write bitter things against me,
and make me reap* the iniquities of my youth.
27You put my feet in the stocks,
and watch all my paths;
you set a bound to the soles of my feet.
28One wastes away like a rotten thing,
like a garment that is moth-eaten.
14‘A mortal, born of woman, few of days and full of trouble,
2 comes up like a flower and withers,
flees like a shadow and does not last.
3Do you fix your eyes on such a one?
Do you bring me into judgement with you?
4Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?
No one can.
5Since their days are determined,
and the number of their months is known to you,
and you have appointed the bounds that they cannot pass,
6look away from them, and desist,*
that they may enjoy, like labourers, their days.
7‘For there is hope for a tree,
if it is cut down, that it will sprout again,
and that its shoots will not cease.
8Though its root grows old in the earth,
and its stump dies in the ground,
9yet at the scent of water it will bud
and put forth branches like a young plant.
10But mortals die, and are laid low;
humans expire, and where are they?
11As waters fail from a lake,
and a river wastes away and dries up,
12so mortals lie down and do not rise again;
until the heavens are no more, they will not awake
or be roused out of their sleep.
13O that you would hide me in Sheol,
that you would conceal me until your wrath is past,
that you would appoint me a set time, and remember me!
14If mortals die, will they live again?
All the days of my service I would wait
until my release should come.
15You would call, and I would answer you;
you would long for the work of your hands.
16For then you would not* number my steps,
you would not keep watch over my sin;
17my transgression would be sealed up in a bag,
and you would cover over my iniquity.
18‘But the mountain falls and crumbles away,
and the rock is removed from its place;
19the waters wear away the stones;
the torrents wash away the soil of the earth;
so you destroy the hope of mortals.
20You prevail for ever against them, and they pass away;
you change their countenance, and send them away.
21Their children come to honour, and they do not know it;
they are brought low, and it goes unnoticed.
22They feel only the pain of their own bodies,
and mourn only for themselves.’
May 22 Job 6-10
6Then Job answered:
2‘O that my vexation were weighed,
and all my calamity laid in the balances!
3For then it would be heavier than the sand of the sea;
therefore my words have been rash.
4For the arrows of the Almighty* are in me;
my spirit drinks their poison;
the terrors of God are arrayed against me.
5Does the wild ass bray over its grass,
or the ox low over its fodder?
6Can that which is tasteless be eaten without salt,
or is there any flavour in the juice of mallows?*
7My appetite refuses to touch them;
they are like food that is loathsome to me.*
8‘O that I might have my request,
and that God would grant my desire;
9that it would please God to crush me,
that he would let loose his hand and cut me off!
10This would be my consolation;
I would even exult* in unrelenting pain;
for I have not denied the words of the Holy One.
11What is my strength, that I should wait?
And what is my end, that I should be patient?
12Is my strength the strength of stones,
or is my flesh bronze?
13In truth I have no help in me,
and any resource is driven from me.
14‘Those who withhold* kindness from a friend
forsake the fear of the Almighty.*
15My companions are treacherous like a torrent-bed,
like freshets that pass away,
16that run dark with ice,
turbid with melting snow.
17In time of heat they disappear;
when it is hot, they vanish from their place.
18The caravans turn aside from their course;
they go up into the waste, and perish.
19The caravans of Tema look,
the travellers of Sheba hope.
20They are disappointed because they were confident;
they come there and are confounded.
21Such you have now become to me;*
you see my calamity, and are afraid.
22Have I said, “Make me a gift”?
Or, “From your wealth offer a bribe for me”?
23Or, “Save me from an opponent’s hand”?
Or, “Ransom me from the hand of oppressors”?
24‘Teach me, and I will be silent;
make me understand how I have gone wrong.
25How forceful are honest words!
But your reproof, what does it reprove?
26Do you think that you can reprove words,
as if the speech of the desperate were wind?
27You would even cast lots over the orphan,
and bargain over your friend.
28‘But now, be pleased to look at me;
for I will not lie to your face.
29Turn, I pray, let no wrong be done.
Turn now, my vindication is at stake.
30Is there any wrong on my tongue?
Cannot my taste discern calamity?
Job: My Suffering Is without End7‘Do not human beings have a hard service on earth,
and are not their days like the days of a labourer?
2Like a slave who longs for the shadow,
and like labourers who look for their wages,
3so I am allotted months of emptiness,
and nights of misery are apportioned to me.
4When I lie down I say, “When shall I rise?”
But the night is long,
and I am full of tossing until dawn.
5My flesh is clothed with worms and dirt;
my skin hardens, then breaks out again.
6My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle,
and come to their end without hope.*
7‘Remember that my life is a breath;
my eye will never again see good.
8The eye that beholds me will see me no more;
while your eyes are upon me, I shall be gone.
9As the cloud fades and vanishes,
so those who go down to Sheol do not come up;
10they return no more to their houses,
nor do their places know them any more.
11‘Therefore I will not restrain my mouth;
I will speak in the anguish of my spirit;
I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.
12Am I the Sea, or the Dragon,
that you set a guard over me?
13When I say, “My bed will comfort me,
my couch will ease my complaint”,
14then you scare me with dreams
and terrify me with visions,
15so that I would choose strangling
and death rather than this body.
16I loathe my life; I would not live for ever.
Let me alone, for my days are a breath.
17What are human beings, that you make so much of them,
that you set your mind on them,
18visit them every morning,
test them every moment?
19Will you not look away from me for a while,
let me alone until I swallow my spittle?
20If I sin, what do I do to you, you watcher of humanity?
Why have you made me your target?
Why have I become a burden to you?
21Why do you not pardon my transgression
and take away my iniquity?
For now I shall lie in the earth;
you will seek me, but I shall not be.’
Bildad Speaks: Job Should Repent8Then Bildad the Shuhite answered:
2‘How long will you say these things,
and the words of your mouth be a great wind?
3Does God pervert justice?
Or does the Almighty* pervert the right?
4If your children sinned against him,
he delivered them into the power of their transgression.
5If you will seek God
and make supplication to the Almighty,*
6if you are pure and upright,
surely then he will rouse himself for you
and restore to you your rightful place.
7Though your beginning was small,
your latter days will be very great.
8‘For inquire now of bygone generations,
and consider what their ancestors have found;
9for we are but of yesterday, and we know nothing,
for our days on earth are but a shadow.
10Will they not teach you and tell you
and utter words out of their understanding?
11‘Can papyrus grow where there is no marsh?
Can reeds flourish where there is no water?
12While yet in flower and not cut down,
they wither before any other plant.
13Such are the paths of all who forget God;
the hope of the godless shall perish.
14Their confidence is gossamer,
a spider’s house their trust.
15If one leans against its house, it will not stand;
if one lays hold of it, it will not endure.
16The wicked thrive* before the sun,
and their shoots spread over the garden.
17Their roots twine around the stoneheap;
they live among the rocks.*
18If they are destroyed from their place,
then it will deny them, saying, “I have never seen you.”
19See, these are their happy ways,*
and out of the earth still others will spring.
20‘See, God will not reject a blameless person,
nor take the hand of evildoers.
21He will yet fill your mouth with laughter,
and your lips with shouts of joy.
22Those who hate you will be clothed with shame,
and the tent of the wicked will be no more.’
Job Replies: There Is No Mediator9Then Job answered:
2‘Indeed I know that this is so;
but how can a mortal be just before God?
3If one wished to contend with him,
one could not answer him once in a thousand.
4He is wise in heart, and mighty in strength
—who has resisted him, and succeeded?—
5he who removes mountains, and they do not know it,
when he overturns them in his anger;
6who shakes the earth out of its place,
and its pillars tremble;
7who commands the sun, and it does not rise;
who seals up the stars;
8who alone stretched out the heavens
and trampled the waves of the Sea;*
9who made the Bear and Orion,
the Pleiades and the chambers of the south;
10who does great things beyond understanding,
and marvellous things without number.
11Look, he passes by me, and I do not see him;
he moves on, but I do not perceive him.
12He snatches away; who can stop him?
Who will say to him, “What are you doing?”
13‘God will not turn back his anger;
the helpers of Rahab bowed beneath him.
14How then can I answer him,
choosing my words with him?
15Though I am innocent, I cannot answer him;
I must appeal for mercy to my accuser.*
16If I summoned him and he answered me,
I do not believe that he would listen to my voice.
17For he crushes me with a tempest,
and multiplies my wounds without cause;
18he will not let me get my breath,
but fills me with bitterness.
19If it is a contest of strength, he is the strong one!
If it is a matter of justice, who can summon him?*
20Though I am innocent, my own mouth would condemn me;
though I am blameless, he would prove me perverse.
21I am blameless; I do not know myself;
I loathe my life.
22It is all one; therefore I say,
he destroys both the blameless and the wicked.
23When disaster brings sudden death,
he mocks at the calamity* of the innocent.
24The earth is given into the hand of the wicked;
he covers the eyes of its judges—
if it is not he, who then is it?
25‘My days are swifter than a runner;
they flee away, they see no good.
26They go by like skiffs of reed,
like an eagle swooping on the prey.
27If I say, “I will forget my complaint;
I will put off my sad countenance and be of good cheer”,
28I become afraid of all my suffering,
for I know you will not hold me innocent.
29I shall be condemned;
why then do I labour in vain?
30If I wash myself with soap
and cleanse my hands with lye,
31yet you will plunge me into filth,
and my own clothes will abhor me.
32For he is not a mortal, as I am, that I might answer him,
that we should come to trial together.
33There is no umpire* between us,
who might lay his hand on us both.
34If he would take his rod away from me,
and not let dread of him terrify me,
35then I would speak without fear of him,
for I know I am not what I am thought to be.*
Job: I Loathe My Life10‘I loathe my life;
I will give free utterance to my complaint;
I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.
2I will say to God, Do not condemn me;
let me know why you contend against me.
3Does it seem good to you to oppress,
to despise the work of your hands
and favour the schemes of the wicked?
4Do you have eyes of flesh?
Do you see as humans see?
5Are your days like the days of mortals,
or your years like human years,
6that you seek out my iniquity
and search for my sin,
7although you know that I am not guilty,
and there is no one to deliver out of your hand?
8Your hands fashioned and made me;
and now you turn and destroy me.*
9Remember that you fashioned me like clay;
and will you turn me to dust again?
10Did you not pour me out like milk
and curdle me like cheese?
11You clothed me with skin and flesh,
and knit me together with bones and sinews.
12You have granted me life and steadfast love,
and your care has preserved my spirit.
13Yet these things you hid in your heart;
I know that this was your purpose.
14If I sin, you watch me,
and do not acquit me of my iniquity.
15If I am wicked, woe to me!
If I am righteous, I cannot lift up my head,
for I am filled with disgrace
and look upon my affliction.
16Bold as a lion you hunt me;
you repeat your exploits against me.
17You renew your witnesses against me,
and increase your vexation towards me;
you bring fresh troops against me.*
18‘Why did you bring me forth from the womb?
Would that I had died before any eye had seen me,
19and were as though I had not been,
carried from the womb to the grave.
20Are not the days of my life few?*
Let me alone, that I may find a little comfort*
21before I go, never to return,
to the land of gloom and deep darkness,
22the land of gloom* and chaos,
where light is like darkness.’
2‘O that my vexation were weighed,
and all my calamity laid in the balances!
3For then it would be heavier than the sand of the sea;
therefore my words have been rash.
4For the arrows of the Almighty* are in me;
my spirit drinks their poison;
the terrors of God are arrayed against me.
5Does the wild ass bray over its grass,
or the ox low over its fodder?
6Can that which is tasteless be eaten without salt,
or is there any flavour in the juice of mallows?*
7My appetite refuses to touch them;
they are like food that is loathsome to me.*
8‘O that I might have my request,
and that God would grant my desire;
9that it would please God to crush me,
that he would let loose his hand and cut me off!
10This would be my consolation;
I would even exult* in unrelenting pain;
for I have not denied the words of the Holy One.
11What is my strength, that I should wait?
And what is my end, that I should be patient?
12Is my strength the strength of stones,
or is my flesh bronze?
13In truth I have no help in me,
and any resource is driven from me.
14‘Those who withhold* kindness from a friend
forsake the fear of the Almighty.*
15My companions are treacherous like a torrent-bed,
like freshets that pass away,
16that run dark with ice,
turbid with melting snow.
17In time of heat they disappear;
when it is hot, they vanish from their place.
18The caravans turn aside from their course;
they go up into the waste, and perish.
19The caravans of Tema look,
the travellers of Sheba hope.
20They are disappointed because they were confident;
they come there and are confounded.
21Such you have now become to me;*
you see my calamity, and are afraid.
22Have I said, “Make me a gift”?
Or, “From your wealth offer a bribe for me”?
23Or, “Save me from an opponent’s hand”?
Or, “Ransom me from the hand of oppressors”?
24‘Teach me, and I will be silent;
make me understand how I have gone wrong.
25How forceful are honest words!
But your reproof, what does it reprove?
26Do you think that you can reprove words,
as if the speech of the desperate were wind?
27You would even cast lots over the orphan,
and bargain over your friend.
28‘But now, be pleased to look at me;
for I will not lie to your face.
29Turn, I pray, let no wrong be done.
Turn now, my vindication is at stake.
30Is there any wrong on my tongue?
Cannot my taste discern calamity?
Job: My Suffering Is without End7‘Do not human beings have a hard service on earth,
and are not their days like the days of a labourer?
2Like a slave who longs for the shadow,
and like labourers who look for their wages,
3so I am allotted months of emptiness,
and nights of misery are apportioned to me.
4When I lie down I say, “When shall I rise?”
But the night is long,
and I am full of tossing until dawn.
5My flesh is clothed with worms and dirt;
my skin hardens, then breaks out again.
6My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle,
and come to their end without hope.*
7‘Remember that my life is a breath;
my eye will never again see good.
8The eye that beholds me will see me no more;
while your eyes are upon me, I shall be gone.
9As the cloud fades and vanishes,
so those who go down to Sheol do not come up;
10they return no more to their houses,
nor do their places know them any more.
11‘Therefore I will not restrain my mouth;
I will speak in the anguish of my spirit;
I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.
12Am I the Sea, or the Dragon,
that you set a guard over me?
13When I say, “My bed will comfort me,
my couch will ease my complaint”,
14then you scare me with dreams
and terrify me with visions,
15so that I would choose strangling
and death rather than this body.
16I loathe my life; I would not live for ever.
Let me alone, for my days are a breath.
17What are human beings, that you make so much of them,
that you set your mind on them,
18visit them every morning,
test them every moment?
19Will you not look away from me for a while,
let me alone until I swallow my spittle?
20If I sin, what do I do to you, you watcher of humanity?
Why have you made me your target?
Why have I become a burden to you?
21Why do you not pardon my transgression
and take away my iniquity?
For now I shall lie in the earth;
you will seek me, but I shall not be.’
Bildad Speaks: Job Should Repent8Then Bildad the Shuhite answered:
2‘How long will you say these things,
and the words of your mouth be a great wind?
3Does God pervert justice?
Or does the Almighty* pervert the right?
4If your children sinned against him,
he delivered them into the power of their transgression.
5If you will seek God
and make supplication to the Almighty,*
6if you are pure and upright,
surely then he will rouse himself for you
and restore to you your rightful place.
7Though your beginning was small,
your latter days will be very great.
8‘For inquire now of bygone generations,
and consider what their ancestors have found;
9for we are but of yesterday, and we know nothing,
for our days on earth are but a shadow.
10Will they not teach you and tell you
and utter words out of their understanding?
11‘Can papyrus grow where there is no marsh?
Can reeds flourish where there is no water?
12While yet in flower and not cut down,
they wither before any other plant.
13Such are the paths of all who forget God;
the hope of the godless shall perish.
14Their confidence is gossamer,
a spider’s house their trust.
15If one leans against its house, it will not stand;
if one lays hold of it, it will not endure.
16The wicked thrive* before the sun,
and their shoots spread over the garden.
17Their roots twine around the stoneheap;
they live among the rocks.*
18If they are destroyed from their place,
then it will deny them, saying, “I have never seen you.”
19See, these are their happy ways,*
and out of the earth still others will spring.
20‘See, God will not reject a blameless person,
nor take the hand of evildoers.
21He will yet fill your mouth with laughter,
and your lips with shouts of joy.
22Those who hate you will be clothed with shame,
and the tent of the wicked will be no more.’
Job Replies: There Is No Mediator9Then Job answered:
2‘Indeed I know that this is so;
but how can a mortal be just before God?
3If one wished to contend with him,
one could not answer him once in a thousand.
4He is wise in heart, and mighty in strength
—who has resisted him, and succeeded?—
5he who removes mountains, and they do not know it,
when he overturns them in his anger;
6who shakes the earth out of its place,
and its pillars tremble;
7who commands the sun, and it does not rise;
who seals up the stars;
8who alone stretched out the heavens
and trampled the waves of the Sea;*
9who made the Bear and Orion,
the Pleiades and the chambers of the south;
10who does great things beyond understanding,
and marvellous things without number.
11Look, he passes by me, and I do not see him;
he moves on, but I do not perceive him.
12He snatches away; who can stop him?
Who will say to him, “What are you doing?”
13‘God will not turn back his anger;
the helpers of Rahab bowed beneath him.
14How then can I answer him,
choosing my words with him?
15Though I am innocent, I cannot answer him;
I must appeal for mercy to my accuser.*
16If I summoned him and he answered me,
I do not believe that he would listen to my voice.
17For he crushes me with a tempest,
and multiplies my wounds without cause;
18he will not let me get my breath,
but fills me with bitterness.
19If it is a contest of strength, he is the strong one!
If it is a matter of justice, who can summon him?*
20Though I am innocent, my own mouth would condemn me;
though I am blameless, he would prove me perverse.
21I am blameless; I do not know myself;
I loathe my life.
22It is all one; therefore I say,
he destroys both the blameless and the wicked.
23When disaster brings sudden death,
he mocks at the calamity* of the innocent.
24The earth is given into the hand of the wicked;
he covers the eyes of its judges—
if it is not he, who then is it?
25‘My days are swifter than a runner;
they flee away, they see no good.
26They go by like skiffs of reed,
like an eagle swooping on the prey.
27If I say, “I will forget my complaint;
I will put off my sad countenance and be of good cheer”,
28I become afraid of all my suffering,
for I know you will not hold me innocent.
29I shall be condemned;
why then do I labour in vain?
30If I wash myself with soap
and cleanse my hands with lye,
31yet you will plunge me into filth,
and my own clothes will abhor me.
32For he is not a mortal, as I am, that I might answer him,
that we should come to trial together.
33There is no umpire* between us,
who might lay his hand on us both.
34If he would take his rod away from me,
and not let dread of him terrify me,
35then I would speak without fear of him,
for I know I am not what I am thought to be.*
Job: I Loathe My Life10‘I loathe my life;
I will give free utterance to my complaint;
I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.
2I will say to God, Do not condemn me;
let me know why you contend against me.
3Does it seem good to you to oppress,
to despise the work of your hands
and favour the schemes of the wicked?
4Do you have eyes of flesh?
Do you see as humans see?
5Are your days like the days of mortals,
or your years like human years,
6that you seek out my iniquity
and search for my sin,
7although you know that I am not guilty,
and there is no one to deliver out of your hand?
8Your hands fashioned and made me;
and now you turn and destroy me.*
9Remember that you fashioned me like clay;
and will you turn me to dust again?
10Did you not pour me out like milk
and curdle me like cheese?
11You clothed me with skin and flesh,
and knit me together with bones and sinews.
12You have granted me life and steadfast love,
and your care has preserved my spirit.
13Yet these things you hid in your heart;
I know that this was your purpose.
14If I sin, you watch me,
and do not acquit me of my iniquity.
15If I am wicked, woe to me!
If I am righteous, I cannot lift up my head,
for I am filled with disgrace
and look upon my affliction.
16Bold as a lion you hunt me;
you repeat your exploits against me.
17You renew your witnesses against me,
and increase your vexation towards me;
you bring fresh troops against me.*
18‘Why did you bring me forth from the womb?
Would that I had died before any eye had seen me,
19and were as though I had not been,
carried from the womb to the grave.
20Are not the days of my life few?*
Let me alone, that I may find a little comfort*
21before I go, never to return,
to the land of gloom and deep darkness,
22the land of gloom* and chaos,
where light is like darkness.’
Thursday, May 21, 2009
May 21 Job 1-5
1There was once a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job. That man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil. 2There were born to him seven sons and three daughters. 3He had seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, five hundred donkeys, and very many servants; so that this man was the greatest of all the people of the east. 4His sons used to go and hold feasts in one another’s houses in turn; and they would send and invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them. 5And when the feast days had run their course, Job would send and sanctify them, and he would rise early in the morning and offer burnt-offerings according to the number of them all; for Job said, ‘It may be that my children have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts.’ This is what Job always did.
Attack on Job’s Character6 One day the heavenly beings* came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan* also came among them. 7The Lord said to Satan,* ‘Where have you come from?’ Satan* answered the Lord, ‘From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.’ 8The Lord said to Satan,* ‘Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away from evil.’ 9Then Satan* answered the Lord, ‘Does Job fear God for nothing? 10Have you not put a fence around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. 11But stretch out your hand now, and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.’ 12The Lord said to Satan,* ‘Very well, all that he has is in your power; only do not stretch out your hand against him!’ So Satan* went out from the presence of the Lord.
Job Loses Property and Children13 One day when his sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in the eldest brother’s house, 14a messenger came to Job and said, ‘The oxen were ploughing and the donkeys were feeding beside them, 15and the Sabeans fell on them and carried them off, and killed the servants with the edge of the sword; I alone have escaped to tell you.’ 16While he was still speaking, another came and said, ‘The fire of God fell from heaven and burned up the sheep and the servants, and consumed them; I alone have escaped to tell you.’ 17While he was still speaking, another came and said, ‘The Chaldeans formed three columns, made a raid on the camels and carried them off, and killed the servants with the edge of the sword; I alone have escaped to tell you.’ 18While he was still speaking, another came and said, ‘Your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother’s house, 19and suddenly a great wind came across the desert, struck the four corners of the house, and it fell on the young people, and they are dead; I alone have escaped to tell you.’
20 Then Job arose, tore his robe, shaved his head, and fell on the ground and worshipped. 21He said, ‘Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there; the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.’
22 In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrongdoing.
Attack on Job’s Health2One day the heavenly beings* came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan* also came among them to present himself before the Lord. 2The Lord said to Satan,* ‘Where have you come from?’ Satan* answered the Lord, ‘From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.’ 3The Lord said to Satan,* ‘Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away from evil. He still persists in his integrity, although you incited me against him, to destroy him for no reason.’ 4Then Satan* answered the Lord, ‘Skin for skin! All that people have they will give to save their lives.* 5But stretch out your hand now and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse you to your face.’ 6The Lord said to Satan,* ‘Very well, he is in your power; only spare his life.’
7 So Satan* went out from the presence of the Lord, and inflicted loathsome sores on Job from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. 8Job* took a potsherd with which to scrape himself, and sat among the ashes.
9 Then his wife said to him, ‘Do you still persist in your integrity? Curse* God, and die.’ 10But he said to her, ‘You speak as any foolish woman would speak. Shall we receive the good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?’ In all this Job did not sin with his lips.
Job’s Three Friends11 Now when Job’s three friends heard of all these troubles that had come upon him, each of them set out from his home—Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. They met together to go and console and comfort him. 12When they saw him from a distance, they did not recognize him, and they raised their voices and wept aloud; they tore their robes and threw dust in the air upon their heads. 13They sat with him on the ground for seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great.
Job Curses the Day He Was Born3After this Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth. 2Job said:
3‘Let the day perish on which I was born,
and the night that said,
“A man-child is conceived.”
4Let that day be darkness!
May God above not seek it,
or light shine on it.
5Let gloom and deep darkness claim it.
Let clouds settle upon it;
let the blackness of the day terrify it.
6That night—let thick darkness seize it!
let it not rejoice among the days of the year;
let it not come into the number of the months.
7Yes, let that night be barren;
let no joyful cry be heard* in it.
8Let those curse it who curse the Sea,*
those who are skilled to rouse up Leviathan.
9Let the stars of its dawn be dark;
let it hope for light, but have none;
may it not see the eyelids of the morning—
10because it did not shut the doors of my mother’s womb,
and hide trouble from my eyes.
11‘Why did I not die at birth,
come forth from the womb and expire?
12Why were there knees to receive me,
or breasts for me to suck?
13Now I would be lying down and quiet;
I would be asleep; then I would be at rest
14with kings and counsellors of the earth
who rebuild ruins for themselves,
15or with princes who have gold,
who fill their houses with silver.
16Or why was I not buried like a stillborn child,
like an infant that never sees the light?
17There the wicked cease from troubling,
and there the weary are at rest.
18There the prisoners are at ease together;
they do not hear the voice of the taskmaster.
19The small and the great are there,
and the slaves are free from their masters.
20‘Why is light given to one in misery,
and life to the bitter in soul,
21who long for death, but it does not come,
and dig for it more than for hidden treasures;
22who rejoice exceedingly,
and are glad when they find the grave?
23Why is light given to one who cannot see the way,
whom God has fenced in?
24For my sighing comes like* my bread,
and my groanings are poured out like water.
25Truly the thing that I fear comes upon me,
and what I dread befalls me.
26I am not at ease, nor am I quiet;
I have no rest; but trouble comes.’
Eliphaz Speaks: Job Has Sinned4Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered:
2‘If one ventures a word with you, will you be offended?
But who can keep from speaking?
3See, you have instructed many;
you have strengthened the weak hands.
4Your words have supported those who were stumbling,
and you have made firm the feeble knees.
5But now it has come to you, and you are impatient;
it touches you, and you are dismayed.
6Is not your fear of God your confidence,
and the integrity of your ways your hope?
7‘Think now, who that was innocent ever perished?
Or where were the upright cut off?
8As I have seen, those who plough iniquity
and sow trouble reap the same.
9By the breath of God they perish,
and by the blast of his anger they are consumed.
10The roar of the lion, the voice of the fierce lion,
and the teeth of the young lions are broken.
11The strong lion perishes for lack of prey,
and the whelps of the lioness are scattered.
12‘Now a word came stealing to me,
my ear received the whisper of it.
13Amid thoughts from visions of the night,
when deep sleep falls on mortals,
14dread came upon me, and trembling,
which made all my bones shake.
15A spirit glided past my face;
the hair of my flesh bristled.
16It stood still,
but I could not discern its appearance.
A form was before my eyes;
there was silence, then I heard a voice:
17“Can mortals be righteous before* God?
Can human beings be pure before* their Maker?
18Even in his servants he puts no trust,
and his angels he charges with error;
19how much more those who live in houses of clay,
whose foundation is in the dust,
who are crushed like a moth.
20Between morning and evening they are destroyed;
they perish for ever without any regarding it.
21Their tent-cord is plucked up within them,
and they die devoid of wisdom.”
Job Is Corrected by God5‘Call now; is there anyone who will answer you?
To which of the holy ones will you turn?
2Surely vexation kills the fool,
and jealousy slays the simple.
3I have seen fools taking root,
but suddenly I cursed their dwelling.
4Their children are far from safety,
they are crushed in the gate,
and there is no one to deliver them.
5The hungry eat their harvest,
and they take it even out of the thorns;*
and the thirsty* pant after their wealth.
6For misery does not come from the earth,
nor does trouble sprout from the ground;
7but human beings are born to trouble
just as sparks* fly upward.
8‘As for me, I would seek God,
and to God I would commit my cause.
9He does great things and unsearchable,
marvellous things without number.
10He gives rain on the earth
and sends waters on the fields;
11he sets on high those who are lowly,
and those who mourn are lifted to safety.
12He frustrates the devices of the crafty,
so that their hands achieve no success.
13He takes the wise in their own craftiness;
and the schemes of the wily are brought to a quick end.
14They meet with darkness in the daytime,
and grope at noonday as in the night.
15But he saves the needy from the sword of their mouth,
from the hand of the mighty.
16So the poor have hope,
and injustice shuts its mouth.
17‘How happy is the one whom God reproves;
therefore do not despise the discipline of the Almighty.*
18For he wounds, but he binds up;
he strikes, but his hands heal.
19He will deliver you from six troubles;
in seven no harm shall touch you.
20In famine he will redeem you from death,
and in war from the power of the sword.
21You shall be hidden from the scourge of the tongue,
and shall not fear destruction when it comes.
22At destruction and famine you shall laugh,
and shall not fear the wild animals of the earth.
23For you shall be in league with the stones of the field,
and the wild animals shall be at peace with you.
24You shall know that your tent is safe,
you shall inspect your fold and miss nothing.
25You shall know that your descendants will be many,
and your offspring like the grass of the earth.
26You shall come to your grave in ripe old age,
as a shock of grain comes up to the threshing-floor in its season.
27See, we have searched this out; it is true.
Hear, and know it for yourself.’
Attack on Job’s Character6 One day the heavenly beings* came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan* also came among them. 7The Lord said to Satan,* ‘Where have you come from?’ Satan* answered the Lord, ‘From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.’ 8The Lord said to Satan,* ‘Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away from evil.’ 9Then Satan* answered the Lord, ‘Does Job fear God for nothing? 10Have you not put a fence around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. 11But stretch out your hand now, and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.’ 12The Lord said to Satan,* ‘Very well, all that he has is in your power; only do not stretch out your hand against him!’ So Satan* went out from the presence of the Lord.
Job Loses Property and Children13 One day when his sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in the eldest brother’s house, 14a messenger came to Job and said, ‘The oxen were ploughing and the donkeys were feeding beside them, 15and the Sabeans fell on them and carried them off, and killed the servants with the edge of the sword; I alone have escaped to tell you.’ 16While he was still speaking, another came and said, ‘The fire of God fell from heaven and burned up the sheep and the servants, and consumed them; I alone have escaped to tell you.’ 17While he was still speaking, another came and said, ‘The Chaldeans formed three columns, made a raid on the camels and carried them off, and killed the servants with the edge of the sword; I alone have escaped to tell you.’ 18While he was still speaking, another came and said, ‘Your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother’s house, 19and suddenly a great wind came across the desert, struck the four corners of the house, and it fell on the young people, and they are dead; I alone have escaped to tell you.’
20 Then Job arose, tore his robe, shaved his head, and fell on the ground and worshipped. 21He said, ‘Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there; the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.’
22 In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrongdoing.
Attack on Job’s Health2One day the heavenly beings* came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan* also came among them to present himself before the Lord. 2The Lord said to Satan,* ‘Where have you come from?’ Satan* answered the Lord, ‘From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.’ 3The Lord said to Satan,* ‘Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away from evil. He still persists in his integrity, although you incited me against him, to destroy him for no reason.’ 4Then Satan* answered the Lord, ‘Skin for skin! All that people have they will give to save their lives.* 5But stretch out your hand now and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse you to your face.’ 6The Lord said to Satan,* ‘Very well, he is in your power; only spare his life.’
7 So Satan* went out from the presence of the Lord, and inflicted loathsome sores on Job from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. 8Job* took a potsherd with which to scrape himself, and sat among the ashes.
9 Then his wife said to him, ‘Do you still persist in your integrity? Curse* God, and die.’ 10But he said to her, ‘You speak as any foolish woman would speak. Shall we receive the good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?’ In all this Job did not sin with his lips.
Job’s Three Friends11 Now when Job’s three friends heard of all these troubles that had come upon him, each of them set out from his home—Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. They met together to go and console and comfort him. 12When they saw him from a distance, they did not recognize him, and they raised their voices and wept aloud; they tore their robes and threw dust in the air upon their heads. 13They sat with him on the ground for seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great.
Job Curses the Day He Was Born3After this Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth. 2Job said:
3‘Let the day perish on which I was born,
and the night that said,
“A man-child is conceived.”
4Let that day be darkness!
May God above not seek it,
or light shine on it.
5Let gloom and deep darkness claim it.
Let clouds settle upon it;
let the blackness of the day terrify it.
6That night—let thick darkness seize it!
let it not rejoice among the days of the year;
let it not come into the number of the months.
7Yes, let that night be barren;
let no joyful cry be heard* in it.
8Let those curse it who curse the Sea,*
those who are skilled to rouse up Leviathan.
9Let the stars of its dawn be dark;
let it hope for light, but have none;
may it not see the eyelids of the morning—
10because it did not shut the doors of my mother’s womb,
and hide trouble from my eyes.
11‘Why did I not die at birth,
come forth from the womb and expire?
12Why were there knees to receive me,
or breasts for me to suck?
13Now I would be lying down and quiet;
I would be asleep; then I would be at rest
14with kings and counsellors of the earth
who rebuild ruins for themselves,
15or with princes who have gold,
who fill their houses with silver.
16Or why was I not buried like a stillborn child,
like an infant that never sees the light?
17There the wicked cease from troubling,
and there the weary are at rest.
18There the prisoners are at ease together;
they do not hear the voice of the taskmaster.
19The small and the great are there,
and the slaves are free from their masters.
20‘Why is light given to one in misery,
and life to the bitter in soul,
21who long for death, but it does not come,
and dig for it more than for hidden treasures;
22who rejoice exceedingly,
and are glad when they find the grave?
23Why is light given to one who cannot see the way,
whom God has fenced in?
24For my sighing comes like* my bread,
and my groanings are poured out like water.
25Truly the thing that I fear comes upon me,
and what I dread befalls me.
26I am not at ease, nor am I quiet;
I have no rest; but trouble comes.’
Eliphaz Speaks: Job Has Sinned4Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered:
2‘If one ventures a word with you, will you be offended?
But who can keep from speaking?
3See, you have instructed many;
you have strengthened the weak hands.
4Your words have supported those who were stumbling,
and you have made firm the feeble knees.
5But now it has come to you, and you are impatient;
it touches you, and you are dismayed.
6Is not your fear of God your confidence,
and the integrity of your ways your hope?
7‘Think now, who that was innocent ever perished?
Or where were the upright cut off?
8As I have seen, those who plough iniquity
and sow trouble reap the same.
9By the breath of God they perish,
and by the blast of his anger they are consumed.
10The roar of the lion, the voice of the fierce lion,
and the teeth of the young lions are broken.
11The strong lion perishes for lack of prey,
and the whelps of the lioness are scattered.
12‘Now a word came stealing to me,
my ear received the whisper of it.
13Amid thoughts from visions of the night,
when deep sleep falls on mortals,
14dread came upon me, and trembling,
which made all my bones shake.
15A spirit glided past my face;
the hair of my flesh bristled.
16It stood still,
but I could not discern its appearance.
A form was before my eyes;
there was silence, then I heard a voice:
17“Can mortals be righteous before* God?
Can human beings be pure before* their Maker?
18Even in his servants he puts no trust,
and his angels he charges with error;
19how much more those who live in houses of clay,
whose foundation is in the dust,
who are crushed like a moth.
20Between morning and evening they are destroyed;
they perish for ever without any regarding it.
21Their tent-cord is plucked up within them,
and they die devoid of wisdom.”
Job Is Corrected by God5‘Call now; is there anyone who will answer you?
To which of the holy ones will you turn?
2Surely vexation kills the fool,
and jealousy slays the simple.
3I have seen fools taking root,
but suddenly I cursed their dwelling.
4Their children are far from safety,
they are crushed in the gate,
and there is no one to deliver them.
5The hungry eat their harvest,
and they take it even out of the thorns;*
and the thirsty* pant after their wealth.
6For misery does not come from the earth,
nor does trouble sprout from the ground;
7but human beings are born to trouble
just as sparks* fly upward.
8‘As for me, I would seek God,
and to God I would commit my cause.
9He does great things and unsearchable,
marvellous things without number.
10He gives rain on the earth
and sends waters on the fields;
11he sets on high those who are lowly,
and those who mourn are lifted to safety.
12He frustrates the devices of the crafty,
so that their hands achieve no success.
13He takes the wise in their own craftiness;
and the schemes of the wily are brought to a quick end.
14They meet with darkness in the daytime,
and grope at noonday as in the night.
15But he saves the needy from the sword of their mouth,
from the hand of the mighty.
16So the poor have hope,
and injustice shuts its mouth.
17‘How happy is the one whom God reproves;
therefore do not despise the discipline of the Almighty.*
18For he wounds, but he binds up;
he strikes, but his hands heal.
19He will deliver you from six troubles;
in seven no harm shall touch you.
20In famine he will redeem you from death,
and in war from the power of the sword.
21You shall be hidden from the scourge of the tongue,
and shall not fear destruction when it comes.
22At destruction and famine you shall laugh,
and shall not fear the wild animals of the earth.
23For you shall be in league with the stones of the field,
and the wild animals shall be at peace with you.
24You shall know that your tent is safe,
you shall inspect your fold and miss nothing.
25You shall know that your descendants will be many,
and your offspring like the grass of the earth.
26You shall come to your grave in ripe old age,
as a shock of grain comes up to the threshing-floor in its season.
27See, we have searched this out; it is true.
Hear, and know it for yourself.’
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
May 20 4 Maccabees 15-18
15O reason of the children, tyrant over the emotions! O religion, more desirable to the mother than her children! 2Two courses were open to this mother, that of religion, and that of preserving her seven sons for a time, as the tyrant had promised. 3She loved religion more, the religion that preserves them for eternal life according to God’s promise.* 4In what manner might I express the emotions of parents who love their children? We impress upon the character of a small child a wondrous likeness both of mind and of form. Especially is this true of mothers, who because of their birth pangs have a deeper sympathy towards their offspring than do the fathers. 5Considering that mothers are the weaker sex and give birth to many, they are more devoted to their children.* 6The mother of the seven boys, more than any other mother, loved her children. In seven pregnancies she had implanted in herself tender love towards them, 7and because of the many pains she suffered with each of them she had sympathy for them; 8yet because of the fear of God she disdained the temporary safety of her children. 9Not only so, but also because of the nobility of her sons and their ready obedience to the law, she felt a greater tenderness towards them. 10For they were righteous and self-controlled and brave and magnanimous, and loved their brothers and their mother, so that they obeyed her even to death in keeping the ordinances.
11 Nevertheless, though so many factors influenced the mother to suffer with them out of love for her children, in the case of none of them were the various tortures strong enough to pervert her reason. 12But each child separately and all of them together the mother urged on to death for religion’s sake. 13O sacred nature and affection of parental love, yearning of parents towards offspring, nurture and indomitable suffering by mothers! 14This mother, who saw them tortured and burned one by one, because of religion did not change her attitude. 15She watched the flesh of her children being consumed by fire, their toes and fingers scattered* on the ground, and the flesh of the head to the chin exposed like masks.
16 O mother, tried now by more bitter pains than even the birth pangs you suffered for them! 17O woman, who alone gave birth to such complete devotion! 18When the firstborn breathed his last, it did not turn you aside, nor when the second in torments looked at you piteously nor when the third expired; 19nor did you weep when you looked at the eyes of each one in his tortures gazing boldly at the same agonies, and saw in their nostrils the signs of the approach of death. 20When you saw the flesh of children burned upon the flesh of other children, severed hands upon hands, scalped heads upon heads, and corpses fallen on other corpses, and when you saw the place filled with many spectators of the torturings, you did not shed tears. 21Neither the melodies of sirens nor the songs of swans attract the attention of their hearers as did the voices of the children in torture calling to their mother. 22How great and how many torments the mother then suffered as her sons were tortured on the wheel and with the hot irons! 23But devout reason, giving her heart a man’s courage in the very midst of her emotions, strengthened her to disregard, for the time, her parental love.
24 Although she witnessed the destruction of seven children and the ingenious and various rackings, this noble mother disregarded all these* because of faith in God. 25For as in the council chamber of her own soul she saw mighty advocates—nature, family, parental love, and the rackings of her children— 26this mother held two ballots, one bearing death and the other deliverance for her children. 27She did not approve the deliverance that would preserve the seven sons for a short time, 28but as the daughter of God-fearing Abraham she remembered his fortitude.
29 O mother of the nation, vindicator of the law and champion of religion, who carried away the prize of the contest in your heart! 30O more noble than males in steadfastness, and more courageous than men in endurance! 31Just as Noah’s ark, carrying the world in the universal flood, stoutly endured the waves, 32so you, O guardian of the law, overwhelmed from every side by the flood of your emotions and the violent winds, the torture of your sons, endured nobly and withstood the wintry storms that assail religion.
16If, then, a woman, advanced in years and mother of seven sons, endured seeing her children tortured to death, it must be admitted that devout reason is sovereign over the emotions. 2Thus I have demonstrated not only that men have ruled over the emotions, but also that a woman has despised the fiercest tortures. 3The lions surrounding Daniel were not so savage, nor was the raging fiery furnace of Mishael so intensely hot, as was her innate parental love, inflamed as she saw her seven sons tortured in such varied ways. 4But the mother quenched so many and such great emotions by devout reason.
5 Consider this also: If this woman, though a mother, had been faint-hearted, she would have mourned over them and perhaps spoken as follows: 6‘O how wretched am I and many times unhappy! After bearing seven children, I am now the mother of none! 7O seven childbirths all in vain, seven profitless pregnancies, fruitless nurturings and wretched nursings! 8In vain, my sons, I endured many birth pangs for you, and the more grievous anxieties of your upbringing. 9Alas for my children, some unmarried, others married and without offspring.* I shall not see your children or have the happiness of being called grandmother. 10Alas, I who had so many and beautiful children am a widow and alone, with many sorrows.* 11And when I die, I shall have none of my sons to bury me.’
12 Yet that holy and God-fearing mother did not wail with such a lament for any of them, nor did she dissuade any of them from dying, nor did she grieve as they were dying. 13On the contrary, as though having a mind like adamant and giving rebirth for immortality to the whole number of her sons, she implored them and urged them on to death for the sake of religion. 14O mother, soldier of God in the cause of religion, elder and woman! By steadfastness you have conquered even a tyrant, and in word and deed you have proved more powerful than a man. 15For when you and your sons were arrested together, you stood and watched Eleazar being tortured, and said to your sons in the Hebrew language, 16‘My sons, noble is the contest to which you are called to bear witness for the nation. Fight zealously for our ancestral law. 17For it would be shameful if, while an aged man endures such agonies for the sake of religion, you young men were to be terrified by tortures. 18Remember that it is through God that you have had a share in the world and have enjoyed life, 19and therefore you ought to endure any suffering for the sake of God. 20For his sake also our father Abraham was zealous to sacrifice his son Isaac, the ancestor of our nation; and when Isaac saw his father’s hand wielding a knife* and descending upon him, he did not cower. 21Daniel the righteous was thrown to the lions, and Hananiah, Azariah, and Mishael were hurled into the fiery furnace and endured it for the sake of God. 22You too must have the same faith in God and not be grieved. 23It is unreasonable for people who have religious knowledge not to withstand pain.’
24 By these words the mother of the seven encouraged and persuaded each of her sons to die rather than violate God’s commandment. 25They knew also that those who die for the sake of God live to God, as do Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the patriarchs.
17Some of the guards said that when she also was about to be seized and put to death she threw herself into the flames so that no one might touch her body.
2 O mother, who with your seven sons nullified the violence of the tyrant, frustrated his evil designs, and showed the courage of your faith! 3Nobly set like a roof on the pillars of your sons, you held firm and unswerving against the earthquake of the tortures. 4Take courage, therefore, O holy-minded mother, maintaining firm an enduring hope in God. 5The moon in heaven, with the stars, does not stand so august as you, who, after lighting the way of your star-like seven sons to piety, stand in honour before God and are firmly set in heaven with them. 6For your children were true descendants of father Abraham.*
The Effect of the Martyrdoms7 If it were possible for us to paint the history of your religion as an artist might, would not those who first beheld it have shuddered as they saw the mother of the seven children enduring their varied tortures to death for the sake of religion? 8Indeed it would be proper to inscribe on their tomb these words as a reminder to the people of our nation:*
9 ‘Here lie buried an aged priest and an aged woman and seven sons, because of the violence of the tyrant who wished to destroy the way of life of the Hebrews. 10They vindicated their nation, looking to God and enduring torture even to death.’
11 Truly the contest in which they were engaged was divine, 12for on that day virtue gave the awards and tested them for their endurance. The prize was immortality in endless life. 13Eleazar was the first contestant, the mother of the seven sons entered the competition, and the brothers contended. 14The tyrant was the antagonist, and the world and the human race were the spectators. 15Reverence for God was victor and gave the crown to its own athletes. 16Who did not admire the athletes of the divine* legislation? Who were not amazed?
17 The tyrant himself and all his council marvelled at their* endurance, 18because of which they now stand before the divine throne and live the life of eternal blessedness. 19For Moses says, ‘All who are consecrated are under your hands.’ 20These, then, who have been consecrated for the sake of God,* are honoured, not only with this honour, but also by the fact that because of them our enemies did not rule over our nation, 21the tyrant was punished, and the homeland purified—they having become, as it were, a ransom for the sin of our nation. 22And through the blood of those devout ones and their death as an atoning sacrifice, divine Providence preserved Israel that previously had been mistreated.
23 For the tyrant Antiochus, when he saw the courage of their virtue and their endurance under the tortures, proclaimed them to his soldiers as an example for their own endurance, 24and this made them brave and courageous for infantry battle and siege, and he ravaged and conquered all his enemies.
18O Israelite children, offspring of the seed of Abraham, obey this law and exercise piety in every way, 2knowing that devout reason is master of all emotions, not only of sufferings from within, but also of those from without.
3 Therefore those who gave over their bodies in suffering for the sake of religion were not only admired by mortals, but also were deemed worthy to share in a divine inheritance. 4Because of them the nation gained peace, and by reviving observance of the law in the homeland they ravaged the enemy. 5The tyrant Antiochus was both punished on earth and is being chastised after his death. Since in no way whatever was he able to compel the Israelites to become pagans and to abandon their ancestral customs, he left Jerusalem and marched against the Persians.
The Mother’s Address to Her Children6 The mother of seven sons expressed also these principles to her children: 7‘I was a pure virgin and did not go outside my father’s house; but I guarded the rib from which woman was made.* 8No seducer corrupted me on a desert plain, nor did the destroyer, the deceitful serpent, defile the purity of my virginity. 9In the time of my maturity I remained with my husband, and when these sons had grown up their father died. A happy man was he, who lived out his life with good children, and did not have the grief of bereavement. 10While he was still with you, he taught you the law and the prophets. 11He read to you about Abel slain by Cain, and Isaac who was offered as a burnt-offering, and about Joseph in prison. 12He told you of the zeal of Phinehas, and he taught you about Hananiah, Azariah, and Mishael in the fire. 13He praised Daniel in the den of the lions and blessed him. 14He reminded you of the scripture of Isaiah, which says, “Even though you go through the fire, the flame shall not consume you.” 15He sang to you songs of the psalmist David, who said, “Many are the afflictions of the righteous.” 16He recounted to you Solomon’s proverb, “There is a tree of life for those who do his will.” 17He confirmed the query of Ezekiel, “Shall these dry bones live?” 18For he did not forget to teach you the song that Moses taught, which says, 19“I kill and I make alive: this is your life and the length of your days.” ’
20 O bitter was that day—and yet not bitter—when that bitter tyrant of the Greeks quenched fire with fire in his cruel cauldrons, and in his burning rage brought those seven sons of the daughter of Abraham to the catapult and back again to more* tortures, 21pierced the pupils of their eyes and cut out their tongues, and put them to death with various tortures. 22For these crimes divine justice pursued and will pursue the accursed tyrant. 23But the sons of Abraham with their victorious mother are gathered together into the chorus of the fathers, and have received pure and immortal* souls from God, 24to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.
11 Nevertheless, though so many factors influenced the mother to suffer with them out of love for her children, in the case of none of them were the various tortures strong enough to pervert her reason. 12But each child separately and all of them together the mother urged on to death for religion’s sake. 13O sacred nature and affection of parental love, yearning of parents towards offspring, nurture and indomitable suffering by mothers! 14This mother, who saw them tortured and burned one by one, because of religion did not change her attitude. 15She watched the flesh of her children being consumed by fire, their toes and fingers scattered* on the ground, and the flesh of the head to the chin exposed like masks.
16 O mother, tried now by more bitter pains than even the birth pangs you suffered for them! 17O woman, who alone gave birth to such complete devotion! 18When the firstborn breathed his last, it did not turn you aside, nor when the second in torments looked at you piteously nor when the third expired; 19nor did you weep when you looked at the eyes of each one in his tortures gazing boldly at the same agonies, and saw in their nostrils the signs of the approach of death. 20When you saw the flesh of children burned upon the flesh of other children, severed hands upon hands, scalped heads upon heads, and corpses fallen on other corpses, and when you saw the place filled with many spectators of the torturings, you did not shed tears. 21Neither the melodies of sirens nor the songs of swans attract the attention of their hearers as did the voices of the children in torture calling to their mother. 22How great and how many torments the mother then suffered as her sons were tortured on the wheel and with the hot irons! 23But devout reason, giving her heart a man’s courage in the very midst of her emotions, strengthened her to disregard, for the time, her parental love.
24 Although she witnessed the destruction of seven children and the ingenious and various rackings, this noble mother disregarded all these* because of faith in God. 25For as in the council chamber of her own soul she saw mighty advocates—nature, family, parental love, and the rackings of her children— 26this mother held two ballots, one bearing death and the other deliverance for her children. 27She did not approve the deliverance that would preserve the seven sons for a short time, 28but as the daughter of God-fearing Abraham she remembered his fortitude.
29 O mother of the nation, vindicator of the law and champion of religion, who carried away the prize of the contest in your heart! 30O more noble than males in steadfastness, and more courageous than men in endurance! 31Just as Noah’s ark, carrying the world in the universal flood, stoutly endured the waves, 32so you, O guardian of the law, overwhelmed from every side by the flood of your emotions and the violent winds, the torture of your sons, endured nobly and withstood the wintry storms that assail religion.
16If, then, a woman, advanced in years and mother of seven sons, endured seeing her children tortured to death, it must be admitted that devout reason is sovereign over the emotions. 2Thus I have demonstrated not only that men have ruled over the emotions, but also that a woman has despised the fiercest tortures. 3The lions surrounding Daniel were not so savage, nor was the raging fiery furnace of Mishael so intensely hot, as was her innate parental love, inflamed as she saw her seven sons tortured in such varied ways. 4But the mother quenched so many and such great emotions by devout reason.
5 Consider this also: If this woman, though a mother, had been faint-hearted, she would have mourned over them and perhaps spoken as follows: 6‘O how wretched am I and many times unhappy! After bearing seven children, I am now the mother of none! 7O seven childbirths all in vain, seven profitless pregnancies, fruitless nurturings and wretched nursings! 8In vain, my sons, I endured many birth pangs for you, and the more grievous anxieties of your upbringing. 9Alas for my children, some unmarried, others married and without offspring.* I shall not see your children or have the happiness of being called grandmother. 10Alas, I who had so many and beautiful children am a widow and alone, with many sorrows.* 11And when I die, I shall have none of my sons to bury me.’
12 Yet that holy and God-fearing mother did not wail with such a lament for any of them, nor did she dissuade any of them from dying, nor did she grieve as they were dying. 13On the contrary, as though having a mind like adamant and giving rebirth for immortality to the whole number of her sons, she implored them and urged them on to death for the sake of religion. 14O mother, soldier of God in the cause of religion, elder and woman! By steadfastness you have conquered even a tyrant, and in word and deed you have proved more powerful than a man. 15For when you and your sons were arrested together, you stood and watched Eleazar being tortured, and said to your sons in the Hebrew language, 16‘My sons, noble is the contest to which you are called to bear witness for the nation. Fight zealously for our ancestral law. 17For it would be shameful if, while an aged man endures such agonies for the sake of religion, you young men were to be terrified by tortures. 18Remember that it is through God that you have had a share in the world and have enjoyed life, 19and therefore you ought to endure any suffering for the sake of God. 20For his sake also our father Abraham was zealous to sacrifice his son Isaac, the ancestor of our nation; and when Isaac saw his father’s hand wielding a knife* and descending upon him, he did not cower. 21Daniel the righteous was thrown to the lions, and Hananiah, Azariah, and Mishael were hurled into the fiery furnace and endured it for the sake of God. 22You too must have the same faith in God and not be grieved. 23It is unreasonable for people who have religious knowledge not to withstand pain.’
24 By these words the mother of the seven encouraged and persuaded each of her sons to die rather than violate God’s commandment. 25They knew also that those who die for the sake of God live to God, as do Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the patriarchs.
17Some of the guards said that when she also was about to be seized and put to death she threw herself into the flames so that no one might touch her body.
2 O mother, who with your seven sons nullified the violence of the tyrant, frustrated his evil designs, and showed the courage of your faith! 3Nobly set like a roof on the pillars of your sons, you held firm and unswerving against the earthquake of the tortures. 4Take courage, therefore, O holy-minded mother, maintaining firm an enduring hope in God. 5The moon in heaven, with the stars, does not stand so august as you, who, after lighting the way of your star-like seven sons to piety, stand in honour before God and are firmly set in heaven with them. 6For your children were true descendants of father Abraham.*
The Effect of the Martyrdoms7 If it were possible for us to paint the history of your religion as an artist might, would not those who first beheld it have shuddered as they saw the mother of the seven children enduring their varied tortures to death for the sake of religion? 8Indeed it would be proper to inscribe on their tomb these words as a reminder to the people of our nation:*
9 ‘Here lie buried an aged priest and an aged woman and seven sons, because of the violence of the tyrant who wished to destroy the way of life of the Hebrews. 10They vindicated their nation, looking to God and enduring torture even to death.’
11 Truly the contest in which they were engaged was divine, 12for on that day virtue gave the awards and tested them for their endurance. The prize was immortality in endless life. 13Eleazar was the first contestant, the mother of the seven sons entered the competition, and the brothers contended. 14The tyrant was the antagonist, and the world and the human race were the spectators. 15Reverence for God was victor and gave the crown to its own athletes. 16Who did not admire the athletes of the divine* legislation? Who were not amazed?
17 The tyrant himself and all his council marvelled at their* endurance, 18because of which they now stand before the divine throne and live the life of eternal blessedness. 19For Moses says, ‘All who are consecrated are under your hands.’ 20These, then, who have been consecrated for the sake of God,* are honoured, not only with this honour, but also by the fact that because of them our enemies did not rule over our nation, 21the tyrant was punished, and the homeland purified—they having become, as it were, a ransom for the sin of our nation. 22And through the blood of those devout ones and their death as an atoning sacrifice, divine Providence preserved Israel that previously had been mistreated.
23 For the tyrant Antiochus, when he saw the courage of their virtue and their endurance under the tortures, proclaimed them to his soldiers as an example for their own endurance, 24and this made them brave and courageous for infantry battle and siege, and he ravaged and conquered all his enemies.
18O Israelite children, offspring of the seed of Abraham, obey this law and exercise piety in every way, 2knowing that devout reason is master of all emotions, not only of sufferings from within, but also of those from without.
3 Therefore those who gave over their bodies in suffering for the sake of religion were not only admired by mortals, but also were deemed worthy to share in a divine inheritance. 4Because of them the nation gained peace, and by reviving observance of the law in the homeland they ravaged the enemy. 5The tyrant Antiochus was both punished on earth and is being chastised after his death. Since in no way whatever was he able to compel the Israelites to become pagans and to abandon their ancestral customs, he left Jerusalem and marched against the Persians.
The Mother’s Address to Her Children6 The mother of seven sons expressed also these principles to her children: 7‘I was a pure virgin and did not go outside my father’s house; but I guarded the rib from which woman was made.* 8No seducer corrupted me on a desert plain, nor did the destroyer, the deceitful serpent, defile the purity of my virginity. 9In the time of my maturity I remained with my husband, and when these sons had grown up their father died. A happy man was he, who lived out his life with good children, and did not have the grief of bereavement. 10While he was still with you, he taught you the law and the prophets. 11He read to you about Abel slain by Cain, and Isaac who was offered as a burnt-offering, and about Joseph in prison. 12He told you of the zeal of Phinehas, and he taught you about Hananiah, Azariah, and Mishael in the fire. 13He praised Daniel in the den of the lions and blessed him. 14He reminded you of the scripture of Isaiah, which says, “Even though you go through the fire, the flame shall not consume you.” 15He sang to you songs of the psalmist David, who said, “Many are the afflictions of the righteous.” 16He recounted to you Solomon’s proverb, “There is a tree of life for those who do his will.” 17He confirmed the query of Ezekiel, “Shall these dry bones live?” 18For he did not forget to teach you the song that Moses taught, which says, 19“I kill and I make alive: this is your life and the length of your days.” ’
20 O bitter was that day—and yet not bitter—when that bitter tyrant of the Greeks quenched fire with fire in his cruel cauldrons, and in his burning rage brought those seven sons of the daughter of Abraham to the catapult and back again to more* tortures, 21pierced the pupils of their eyes and cut out their tongues, and put them to death with various tortures. 22For these crimes divine justice pursued and will pursue the accursed tyrant. 23But the sons of Abraham with their victorious mother are gathered together into the chorus of the fathers, and have received pure and immortal* souls from God, 24to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
May 19 4 Maccabees 10-14
10When he too had endured a glorious death, the third was led in, and many repeatedly urged him to save himself by tasting the meat. 2But he shouted, ‘Do you not know that the same father begot me as well as those who died, and the same mother bore me, and that I was brought up on the same teachings? 3I do not renounce the noble kinship that binds me to my brothers.’* 5Enraged by the man’s boldness, they disjointed his hands and feet with their instruments, dismembering him by prizing his limbs from their sockets, 6and breaking his fingers and arms and legs and elbows. 7Since they were not able in any way to break his spirit,* they abandoned the instruments* and scalped him with their fingernails in a Scythian fashion. 8They immediately brought him to the wheel, and while his vertebrae were being dislocated by this, he saw his own flesh torn all around and drops of blood flowing from his entrails. 9When he was about to die, he said, 10‘We, most abominable tyrant, are suffering because of our godly training and virtue, 11but you, because of your impiety and bloodthirstiness, will undergo unceasing torments.’
12 When he too had died in a manner worthy of his brothers, they dragged in the fourth, saying, 13‘As for you, do not give way to the same insanity as your brothers, but obey the king and save yourself.’ 14But he said to them, ‘You do not have a fire hot enough to make me play the coward. 15No—by the blessed death of my brothers, by the eternal destruction of the tyrant, and by the everlasting life of the pious, I will not renounce our noble family ties. 16Contrive tortures, tyrant, so that you may learn from them that I am a brother to those who have just now been tortured.’ 17When he heard this, the bloodthirsty, murderous, and utterly abominable Antiochus gave orders to cut out his tongue. 18But he said, ‘Even if you remove my organ of speech, God hears also those who are mute. 19See, here is my tongue; cut it off, for in spite of this you will not make our reason speechless. 20Gladly, for the sake of God, we let our bodily members be mutilated. 21God will visit you swiftly, for you are cutting out a tongue that has been melodious with divine hymns.’
The Torture of the Fifth and Sixth Brothers11When he too died, after being cruelly tortured, the fifth leapt up, saying, 2‘I will not refuse, tyrant, to be tortured for the sake of virtue. 3I have come of my own accord, so that by murdering me you will incur punishment from the heavenly justice for even more crimes. 4Hater of virtue, hater of humankind, for what act of ours are you destroying us in this way? 5Is it because* we revere the Creator of all things and live according to his virtuous law? 6But these deeds deserve honours, not tortures.’* 9While he was saying these things, the guards bound him and dragged him to the catapult; 10they tied him to it on his knees, and fitting iron clamps on them, they twisted his back* around the wedge on the wheel,* so that he was completely curled back like a scorpion, and all his members were disjointed. 11In this condition, gasping for breath and in anguish of body, 12he said, ‘Tyrant, they are splendid favours that you grant us against your will, because through these noble sufferings you give us an opportunity to show our endurance for the law.’
13 When he too had died, the sixth, a mere boy, was led in. When the tyrant inquired whether he was willing to eat and be released, he said, 14‘I am younger in age than my brothers, but I am their equal in mind. 15Since to this end we were born and bred, we ought likewise to die for the same principles. 16So if you intend to torture me for not eating defiling foods, go on torturing!’ 17When he had said this, they led him to the wheel. 18He was carefully stretched tight upon it, his back was broken, and he was roasted* from underneath. 19To his back they applied sharp spits that had been heated in the fire, and pierced his ribs so that his entrails were burned through. 20While being tortured he said, ‘O contest befitting holiness, in which so many of us brothers have been summoned to an arena of sufferings for religion, and in which we have not been defeated! 21For religious knowledge, O tyrant, is invincible. 22I also, equipped with nobility, will die with my brothers, 23and I myself will bring a great avenger upon you, you inventor of tortures and enemy of those who are truly devout. 24We six boys have paralysed your tyranny. 25Since you have not been able to persuade us to change our mind or to force us to eat defiling foods, is not this your downfall? 26Your fire is cold to us, and the catapults painless, and your violence powerless. 27For it is not the guards of the tyrant but those of the divine law that are set over us; therefore, unconquered, we hold fast to reason.’
The Torture of the Seventh Brother12When he too, thrown into the cauldron, had died a blessed death, the seventh and youngest of all came forward. 2Even though the tyrant had been vehemently reproached by the brothers, he felt strong compassion for this child when he saw that he was already in fetters. He summoned him to come nearer and tried to persuade him, saying, 3‘You see the result of your brothers’ stupidity, for they died in torments because of their disobedience. 4You too, if you do not obey, will be miserably tortured and die before your time, 5but if you yield to persuasion you will be my friend and a leader in the government of the kingdom.’ 6When he had thus appealed to him, he sent for the boy’s mother to show compassion on her who had been bereaved of so many sons and to influence her to persuade the surviving son to obey and save himself. 7But when his mother had exhorted him in the Hebrew language, as we shall tell a little later, 8he said, ‘Let me loose, let me speak to the king and to all his friends that are with him.’ 9Extremely pleased by the boy’s declaration, they freed him at once. 10Running to the nearest of the braziers, 11he said, ‘You profane tyrant, most impious of all the wicked, since you have received good things and also your kingdom from God, were you not ashamed to murder his servants and torture on the wheel those who practise religion? 12Because of this, justice has laid up for you intense and eternal fire and tortures, and these throughout all time* will never let you go. 13As a man, were you not ashamed, you most savage beast, to cut out the tongues of men who have feelings like yours and are made of the same elements as you, and to maltreat and torture them in this way? 14Surely they by dying nobly fulfilled their service to God, but you will wail bitterly for having killed without cause the contestants for virtue.’ 15Then because he too was about to die, he said, 16‘I do not desert the excellent example* of my brothers, 17and I call on the God of our ancestors to be merciful to our nation;* 18but on you he will take vengeance both in this present life and when you are dead.’ 19After he had uttered these imprecations, he flung himself into the braziers and so ended his life.*
Reason’s Sovereignty in the Seven13Since, then, the seven brothers despised sufferings even unto death, everyone must concede that devout reason is sovereign over the emotions. 2For if they had been slaves to their emotions and had eaten defiling food, we would say that they had been conquered by these emotions. 3But in fact it was not so. Instead, by reason, which is praised before God, they prevailed over their emotions. 4The supremacy of the mind over these cannot be overlooked, for the brothers* mastered both emotions and pains. 5How then can one fail to confess the sovereignty of right reason over emotion in those who were not turned back by fiery agonies? 6For just as towers jutting out over harbours hold back the threatening waves and make it calm for those who sail into the inner basin, 7so the seven-towered right reason of the youths, by fortifying the harbour of religion, conquered the tempest of the emotions. 8For they constituted a holy chorus of religion and encouraged one another, saying, 9‘Brothers, let us die like brothers for the sake of the law; let us imitate the three youths in Assyria who despised the same ordeal of the furnace. 10Let us not be cowardly in the demonstration of our piety.’ 11While one said, ‘Courage, brother’, another said, ‘Bear up nobly’, 12and another reminded them, ‘Remember whence you came, and the father by whose hand Isaac would have submitted to being slain for the sake of religion.’ 13Each of them and all of them together looking at one another, cheerful and undaunted, said, ‘Let us with all our hearts consecrate ourselves to God, who gave us our lives,* and let us use our bodies as a bulwark for the law. 14Let us not fear him who thinks he is killing us, 15for great is the struggle of the soul and the danger of eternal torment lying before those who transgress the commandment of God. 16Therefore let us put on the full armour of self-control, which is divine reason. 17For if we so die,* Abraham and Isaac and Jacob will welcome us, and all the fathers will praise us.’ 18Those who were left behind said to each of the brothers who were being dragged away, ‘Do not put us to shame, brother, or betray the brothers who have died before us.’
19 You are not ignorant of the affection of family ties, which the divine and all-wise Providence has bequeathed through the fathers to their descendants and which was implanted in the mother’s womb. 20There each of the brothers spent the same length of time and was shaped during the same period of time; and growing from the same blood and through the same life, they were brought to the light of day. 21When they were born after an equal time of gestation, they drank milk from the same fountains. From such embraces brotherly-loving souls are nourished; 22and they grow stronger from this common nurture and daily companionship, and from both general education and our discipline in the law of God.
23 Therefore, when sympathy and brotherly affection had been so established, the brothers were the more sympathetic to one another. 24Since they had been educated by the same law and trained in the same virtues and brought up in right living, they loved one another all the more. 25A common zeal for nobility strengthened their goodwill towards one another, and their concord, 26because they could make their brotherly love more fervent with the aid of their religion. 27But although nature and companionship and virtuous habits had augmented the affection of family ties, those who were left endured for the sake of religion, while watching their brothers being maltreated and tortured to death.
14Furthermore, they encouraged them to face the torture, so that they not only despised their agonies, but also mastered the emotions of brotherly love.
2 O reason,* more royal than kings and freer than the free! 3O sacred and harmonious concord of the seven brothers on behalf of religion! 4None of the seven youths proved coward or shrank from death, 5but all of them, as though running the course towards immortality, hastened to death by torture. 6Just as the hands and feet are moved in harmony with the guidance of the mind, so those holy youths, as though moved by an immortal spirit of devotion, agreed to go to death for its sake. 7O most holy seven, brothers in harmony! For just as the seven days of creation move in choral dance around religion, 8so these youths, forming a chorus, encircled the sevenfold fear of tortures and dissolved it. 9Even now, we ourselves shudder as we hear of the suffering of these young men; they not only saw what was happening, not only heard the direct word of threat, but also bore the sufferings patiently, and in agonies of fire at that. 10What could be more excruciatingly painful than this? For the power of fire is intense and swift, and it consumed their bodies quickly.
An Encomium on the Mother of the Seven11 Do not consider it amazing that reason had full command over these men in their tortures, since the mind of woman despised even more diverse agonies, 12for the mother of the seven young men bore up under the rackings of each one of her children.
13 Observe how complex is a mother’s love for her children, which draws everything towards an emotion felt in her inmost parts. 14Even unreasoning animals, as well as human beings, have a sympathy and parental love for their offspring. 15For example, among birds, the ones that are tame protect their young by building on the housetops, 16and the others, by building in precipitous chasms and in holes and tops of trees, hatch the nestlings and ward off the intruder. 17If they are not able to keep the intruder* away, they do what they can to help their young by flying in circles around them in the anguish of love, warning them with their own calls. 18And why is it necessary to demonstrate sympathy for children by the example of unreasoning animals, 19since even bees at the time for making honeycombs defend themselves against intruders and, as though with an iron dart, sting those who approach their hive and defend it even to the death? 20But sympathy for her children did not sway the mother of the young men; she was of the same mind as Abraham.
12 When he too had died in a manner worthy of his brothers, they dragged in the fourth, saying, 13‘As for you, do not give way to the same insanity as your brothers, but obey the king and save yourself.’ 14But he said to them, ‘You do not have a fire hot enough to make me play the coward. 15No—by the blessed death of my brothers, by the eternal destruction of the tyrant, and by the everlasting life of the pious, I will not renounce our noble family ties. 16Contrive tortures, tyrant, so that you may learn from them that I am a brother to those who have just now been tortured.’ 17When he heard this, the bloodthirsty, murderous, and utterly abominable Antiochus gave orders to cut out his tongue. 18But he said, ‘Even if you remove my organ of speech, God hears also those who are mute. 19See, here is my tongue; cut it off, for in spite of this you will not make our reason speechless. 20Gladly, for the sake of God, we let our bodily members be mutilated. 21God will visit you swiftly, for you are cutting out a tongue that has been melodious with divine hymns.’
The Torture of the Fifth and Sixth Brothers11When he too died, after being cruelly tortured, the fifth leapt up, saying, 2‘I will not refuse, tyrant, to be tortured for the sake of virtue. 3I have come of my own accord, so that by murdering me you will incur punishment from the heavenly justice for even more crimes. 4Hater of virtue, hater of humankind, for what act of ours are you destroying us in this way? 5Is it because* we revere the Creator of all things and live according to his virtuous law? 6But these deeds deserve honours, not tortures.’* 9While he was saying these things, the guards bound him and dragged him to the catapult; 10they tied him to it on his knees, and fitting iron clamps on them, they twisted his back* around the wedge on the wheel,* so that he was completely curled back like a scorpion, and all his members were disjointed. 11In this condition, gasping for breath and in anguish of body, 12he said, ‘Tyrant, they are splendid favours that you grant us against your will, because through these noble sufferings you give us an opportunity to show our endurance for the law.’
13 When he too had died, the sixth, a mere boy, was led in. When the tyrant inquired whether he was willing to eat and be released, he said, 14‘I am younger in age than my brothers, but I am their equal in mind. 15Since to this end we were born and bred, we ought likewise to die for the same principles. 16So if you intend to torture me for not eating defiling foods, go on torturing!’ 17When he had said this, they led him to the wheel. 18He was carefully stretched tight upon it, his back was broken, and he was roasted* from underneath. 19To his back they applied sharp spits that had been heated in the fire, and pierced his ribs so that his entrails were burned through. 20While being tortured he said, ‘O contest befitting holiness, in which so many of us brothers have been summoned to an arena of sufferings for religion, and in which we have not been defeated! 21For religious knowledge, O tyrant, is invincible. 22I also, equipped with nobility, will die with my brothers, 23and I myself will bring a great avenger upon you, you inventor of tortures and enemy of those who are truly devout. 24We six boys have paralysed your tyranny. 25Since you have not been able to persuade us to change our mind or to force us to eat defiling foods, is not this your downfall? 26Your fire is cold to us, and the catapults painless, and your violence powerless. 27For it is not the guards of the tyrant but those of the divine law that are set over us; therefore, unconquered, we hold fast to reason.’
The Torture of the Seventh Brother12When he too, thrown into the cauldron, had died a blessed death, the seventh and youngest of all came forward. 2Even though the tyrant had been vehemently reproached by the brothers, he felt strong compassion for this child when he saw that he was already in fetters. He summoned him to come nearer and tried to persuade him, saying, 3‘You see the result of your brothers’ stupidity, for they died in torments because of their disobedience. 4You too, if you do not obey, will be miserably tortured and die before your time, 5but if you yield to persuasion you will be my friend and a leader in the government of the kingdom.’ 6When he had thus appealed to him, he sent for the boy’s mother to show compassion on her who had been bereaved of so many sons and to influence her to persuade the surviving son to obey and save himself. 7But when his mother had exhorted him in the Hebrew language, as we shall tell a little later, 8he said, ‘Let me loose, let me speak to the king and to all his friends that are with him.’ 9Extremely pleased by the boy’s declaration, they freed him at once. 10Running to the nearest of the braziers, 11he said, ‘You profane tyrant, most impious of all the wicked, since you have received good things and also your kingdom from God, were you not ashamed to murder his servants and torture on the wheel those who practise religion? 12Because of this, justice has laid up for you intense and eternal fire and tortures, and these throughout all time* will never let you go. 13As a man, were you not ashamed, you most savage beast, to cut out the tongues of men who have feelings like yours and are made of the same elements as you, and to maltreat and torture them in this way? 14Surely they by dying nobly fulfilled their service to God, but you will wail bitterly for having killed without cause the contestants for virtue.’ 15Then because he too was about to die, he said, 16‘I do not desert the excellent example* of my brothers, 17and I call on the God of our ancestors to be merciful to our nation;* 18but on you he will take vengeance both in this present life and when you are dead.’ 19After he had uttered these imprecations, he flung himself into the braziers and so ended his life.*
Reason’s Sovereignty in the Seven13Since, then, the seven brothers despised sufferings even unto death, everyone must concede that devout reason is sovereign over the emotions. 2For if they had been slaves to their emotions and had eaten defiling food, we would say that they had been conquered by these emotions. 3But in fact it was not so. Instead, by reason, which is praised before God, they prevailed over their emotions. 4The supremacy of the mind over these cannot be overlooked, for the brothers* mastered both emotions and pains. 5How then can one fail to confess the sovereignty of right reason over emotion in those who were not turned back by fiery agonies? 6For just as towers jutting out over harbours hold back the threatening waves and make it calm for those who sail into the inner basin, 7so the seven-towered right reason of the youths, by fortifying the harbour of religion, conquered the tempest of the emotions. 8For they constituted a holy chorus of religion and encouraged one another, saying, 9‘Brothers, let us die like brothers for the sake of the law; let us imitate the three youths in Assyria who despised the same ordeal of the furnace. 10Let us not be cowardly in the demonstration of our piety.’ 11While one said, ‘Courage, brother’, another said, ‘Bear up nobly’, 12and another reminded them, ‘Remember whence you came, and the father by whose hand Isaac would have submitted to being slain for the sake of religion.’ 13Each of them and all of them together looking at one another, cheerful and undaunted, said, ‘Let us with all our hearts consecrate ourselves to God, who gave us our lives,* and let us use our bodies as a bulwark for the law. 14Let us not fear him who thinks he is killing us, 15for great is the struggle of the soul and the danger of eternal torment lying before those who transgress the commandment of God. 16Therefore let us put on the full armour of self-control, which is divine reason. 17For if we so die,* Abraham and Isaac and Jacob will welcome us, and all the fathers will praise us.’ 18Those who were left behind said to each of the brothers who were being dragged away, ‘Do not put us to shame, brother, or betray the brothers who have died before us.’
19 You are not ignorant of the affection of family ties, which the divine and all-wise Providence has bequeathed through the fathers to their descendants and which was implanted in the mother’s womb. 20There each of the brothers spent the same length of time and was shaped during the same period of time; and growing from the same blood and through the same life, they were brought to the light of day. 21When they were born after an equal time of gestation, they drank milk from the same fountains. From such embraces brotherly-loving souls are nourished; 22and they grow stronger from this common nurture and daily companionship, and from both general education and our discipline in the law of God.
23 Therefore, when sympathy and brotherly affection had been so established, the brothers were the more sympathetic to one another. 24Since they had been educated by the same law and trained in the same virtues and brought up in right living, they loved one another all the more. 25A common zeal for nobility strengthened their goodwill towards one another, and their concord, 26because they could make their brotherly love more fervent with the aid of their religion. 27But although nature and companionship and virtuous habits had augmented the affection of family ties, those who were left endured for the sake of religion, while watching their brothers being maltreated and tortured to death.
14Furthermore, they encouraged them to face the torture, so that they not only despised their agonies, but also mastered the emotions of brotherly love.
2 O reason,* more royal than kings and freer than the free! 3O sacred and harmonious concord of the seven brothers on behalf of religion! 4None of the seven youths proved coward or shrank from death, 5but all of them, as though running the course towards immortality, hastened to death by torture. 6Just as the hands and feet are moved in harmony with the guidance of the mind, so those holy youths, as though moved by an immortal spirit of devotion, agreed to go to death for its sake. 7O most holy seven, brothers in harmony! For just as the seven days of creation move in choral dance around religion, 8so these youths, forming a chorus, encircled the sevenfold fear of tortures and dissolved it. 9Even now, we ourselves shudder as we hear of the suffering of these young men; they not only saw what was happening, not only heard the direct word of threat, but also bore the sufferings patiently, and in agonies of fire at that. 10What could be more excruciatingly painful than this? For the power of fire is intense and swift, and it consumed their bodies quickly.
An Encomium on the Mother of the Seven11 Do not consider it amazing that reason had full command over these men in their tortures, since the mind of woman despised even more diverse agonies, 12for the mother of the seven young men bore up under the rackings of each one of her children.
13 Observe how complex is a mother’s love for her children, which draws everything towards an emotion felt in her inmost parts. 14Even unreasoning animals, as well as human beings, have a sympathy and parental love for their offspring. 15For example, among birds, the ones that are tame protect their young by building on the housetops, 16and the others, by building in precipitous chasms and in holes and tops of trees, hatch the nestlings and ward off the intruder. 17If they are not able to keep the intruder* away, they do what they can to help their young by flying in circles around them in the anguish of love, warning them with their own calls. 18And why is it necessary to demonstrate sympathy for children by the example of unreasoning animals, 19since even bees at the time for making honeycombs defend themselves against intruders and, as though with an iron dart, sting those who approach their hive and defend it even to the death? 20But sympathy for her children did not sway the mother of the young men; she was of the same mind as Abraham.
Monday, May 18, 2009
May 18 4 Maccabees 5-9
5The tyrant Antiochus, sitting in state with his counsellors on a certain high place, and with his armed soldiers standing around him, 2ordered the guards to seize each and every Hebrew and to compel them to eat pork and food sacrificed to idols. 3If any were not willing to eat defiling food, they were to be broken on the wheel and killed. 4When many people had been rounded up, one man, Eleazar by name, leader of the flock, was brought* before the king. He was a man of priestly family, learned in the law, advanced in age, and known to many in the tyrant’s court because of his philosophy.*
5 When Antiochus saw him he said, 6‘Before I begin to torture you, old man, I would advise you to save yourself by eating pork, 7for I respect your age and your grey hairs. Although you have had them for so long a time, it does not seem to me that you are a philosopher when you observe the religion of the Jews. 8When nature has granted it to us, why should you abhor eating the very excellent meat of this animal? 9It is senseless not to enjoy delicious things that are not shameful, and wrong to spurn the gifts of nature. 10It seems to me that you will do something even more senseless if, by holding a vain opinion concerning the truth, you continue to despise me to your own hurt. 11Will you not awaken from your foolish philosophy, dispel your futile reasonings, adopt a mind appropriate to your years, philosophize according to the truth of what is beneficial, 12and have compassion on your old age by honouring my humane advice? 13For consider this: if there is some power watching over this religion of yours, it will excuse you from any transgression that arises out of compulsion.’
14 When the tyrant urged him in this fashion to eat meat unlawfully, Eleazar asked to have a word. 15When he had received permission to speak, he began to address the people as follows: 16‘We, O Antiochus, who have been persuaded to govern our lives by the divine law, think that there is no compulsion more powerful than our obedience to the law. 17Therefore we consider that we should not transgress it in any respect. 18Even if, as you suppose, our law were not truly divine and we had wrongly held it to be divine, not even so would it be right for us to invalidate our reputation for piety. 19Therefore do not suppose that it would be a petty sin if we were to eat defiling food; 20to transgress the law in matters either small or great is of equal seriousness, 21for in either case the law is equally despised. 22You scoff at our philosophy as though living by it were irrational, 23but it teaches us self-control, so that we master all pleasures and desires, and it also trains us in courage, so that we endure any suffering willingly; 24it instructs us in justice, so that in all our dealings we act impartially,* and it teaches us piety, so that with proper reverence we worship the only living God.
25 ‘Therefore we do not eat defiling food; for since we believe that the law was established by God, we know that in the nature of things the Creator of the world in giving us the law has shown sympathy towards us. 26He has permitted us to eat what will be most suitable for our lives,* but he has forbidden us to eat meats that would be contrary to this. 27It would be tyrannical for you to compel us not only to transgress the law, but also to eat in such a way that you may deride us for eating defiling foods, which are most hateful to us. 28But you shall have no such occasion to laugh at me, 29nor will I transgress the sacred oaths of my ancestors concerning the keeping of the law, 30not even if you gouge out my eyes and burn my entrails. 31I am not so old and cowardly as not to be young in reason on behalf of piety. 32Therefore get your torture wheels ready and fan the fire more vehemently! 33I do not so pity my old age as to break the ancestral law by my own act. 34I will not play false to you, O law that trained me, nor will I renounce you, beloved self-control. 35I will not put you to shame, philosophical reason, nor will I reject you, honoured priesthood and knowledge of the law. 36You, O king,* shall not defile the honourable mouth of my old age, nor my long life lived lawfully. 37My ancestors will receive me as pure, as one who does not fear your violence even to death. 38You may tyrannize the ungodly, but you shall not dominate my religious principles, either by words or through deeds.’
Martyrdom of Eleazar6When Eleazar in this manner had made eloquent response to the exhortations of the tyrant, the guards who were standing by dragged him violently to the instruments of torture. 2First they stripped the old man, though he remained adorned with the gracefulness of his piety. 3After they had tied his arms on each side they flogged him, 4while a herald who faced him cried out, ‘Obey the king’s commands!’ 5But the courageous and noble man, like a true Eleazar, was unmoved, as though being tortured in a dream; 6yet while the old man’s eyes were raised to heaven, his flesh was being torn by scourges, his blood flowing, and his sides were being cut to pieces. 7Although he fell to the ground because his body could not endure the agonies, he kept his reason upright and unswerving. 8One of the cruel guards rushed at him and began to kick him in the side to make him get up again after he fell. 9But he bore the pains and scorned the punishment and endured the tortures. 10Like a noble athlete the old man, while being beaten, was victorious over his torturers; 11in fact, with his face bathed in sweat, and gasping heavily for breath, he amazed even his torturers by his courageous spirit.
12 At that point, partly out of pity for his old age, 13partly out of sympathy from their acquaintance with him, partly out of admiration for his endurance, some of the king’s retinue came to him and said, 14‘Eleazar, why are you so irrationally destroying yourself through these evil things? 15We will set before you some cooked meat; save yourself by pretending to eat pork.’
16 But Eleazar, as though more bitterly tormented by this counsel, cried out: 17‘Never may we, the children of Abraham,* think so basely that out of cowardice we feign a role unbecoming to us! 18For it would be irrational if, having lived in accordance with truth up to old age and having maintained in accordance with law the reputation of such a life, we should now change our course 19and ourselves become a pattern of impiety to the young by setting them an example in the eating of defiling food. 20It would be shameful if we should survive for a little while and during that time be a laughings-tock to all for our cowardice, 21and be despised by the tyrant as unmanly by not contending even to death for our divine law. 22Therefore, O children of Abraham, die nobly for your religion! 23And you, guards of the tyrant, why do you delay?’
24 When they saw that he was so courageous in the face of the afflictions, and that he had not been changed by their compassion, the guards brought him to the fire. 25There they burned him with maliciously contrived instruments, threw him down, and poured stinking liquids into his nostrils. 26When he was now burned to his very bones and about to expire, he lifted up his eyes to God and said, 27‘You know, O God, that though I might have saved myself, I am dying in burning torments for the sake of the law. 28Be merciful to your people, and let our punishment suffice for them. 29Make my blood their purification, and take my life in exchange for theirs.’ 30After he said this, the holy man died nobly in his tortures; even in the tortures of death he resisted, by virtue of reason, for the sake of the law.
31 Admittedly, then, devout reason is sovereign over the emotions. 32For if the emotions had prevailed over reason, we would have testified to their domination. 33But now that reason has conquered the emotions, we properly attribute to it the power to govern. 34It is right for us to acknowledge the dominance of reason when it masters even external agonies. It would be ridiculous to deny it.* 35I have proved not only that reason has mastered agonies, but also that it masters pleasures and in no respect yields to them.
An Encomium on Eleazar7For like a most skilful pilot, the reason of our father Eleazar steered the ship of religion over the sea of the emotions, 2and, though buffeted by the stormings of the tyrant and overwhelmed by the mighty waves of tortures, 3in no way did he turn the rudder of religion until he sailed into the haven of immortal victory. 4No city besieged with many ingenious war machines has ever held out as did that most holy man. Although his sacred life was consumed by tortures and racks, he conquered the besiegers with the shield of his devout reason. 5For in setting his mind firm like a jutting cliff, our father Eleazar broke the maddening waves of the emotions. 6O priest, worthy of the priesthood, you neither defiled your sacred teeth nor profaned your stomach, which had room only for reverence and purity, by eating defiling foods. 7O man in harmony with the law and philosopher of divine life! 8Such should be those who are administrators of the law, shielding it with their own blood and noble sweat in sufferings even to death. 9You, father, strengthened our loyalty to the law through your glorious endurance, and you did not abandon the holiness that you praised, but by your deeds you made your words of divine* philosophy credible. 10O aged man, more powerful than tortures; O elder, fiercer than fire; O supreme king over the passions, Eleazar! 11For just as our father Aaron, armed with the censer, ran through the multitude of the people and conquered the fiery* angel, 12so the descendant of Aaron, Eleazar, though being consumed by the fire, remained unmoved in his reason. 13Most amazing, indeed, though he was an old man, his body no longer tense and firm,* his muscles flabby, his sinews feeble, he became young again 14in spirit through reason; and by reason like that of Isaac he rendered the many-headed rack ineffective. 15O man of blessed age and of venerable grey hair and of law-abiding life, whom the faithful seal of death has perfected!
16 If, therefore, because of piety an aged man despised tortures even to death, most certainly devout reason is governor of the emotions. 17Some perhaps might say, ‘Not all have full command of their emotions, because not all have prudent reason.’ 18But as many as attend to religion with a whole heart, these alone are able to control the passions of the flesh, 19since they believe that they, like our patriarchs Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, do not die to God, but live to God. 20No contradiction therefore arises when some persons appear to be dominated by their emotions because of the weakness of their reason. 21What person who lives as a philosopher by the whole rule of philosophy, and trusts in God, 22and knows that it is blessed to endure any suffering for the sake of virtue, would not be able to overcome the emotions through godliness? 23For only the wise and courageous are masters of their emotions.
Seven Brothers Defy the Tyrant8For this is why even the very young, by following a philosophy in accordance with devout reason, have prevailed over the most painful instruments of torture. 2For when the tyrant was conspicuously defeated in his first attempt, being unable to compel an aged man to eat defiling foods, then in violent rage he commanded that others of the Hebrew captives be brought, and that any who ate defiling food would be freed after eating, but if any were to refuse, they would be tortured even more cruelly.
3 When the tyrant had given these orders, seven brothers—handsome, modest, noble, and accomplished in every way—were brought before him along with their aged mother. 4When the tyrant saw them, grouped about their mother as though a chorus, he was pleased with them. And struck by their appearance and nobility, he smiled at them, and summoned them nearer and said, 5‘Young men, with favourable feelings I admire each and every one of you, and greatly respect the beauty and the number of such brothers. Not only do I advise you not to display the same madness as that of the old man who has just been tortured, but I also exhort you to yield to me and enjoy my friendship. 6Just as I am able to punish those who disobey my orders, so I can be a benefactor to those who obey me. 7Trust me, then, and you will have positions of authority in my government if you will renounce the ancestral tradition of your national life. 8Enjoy your youth by adopting the Greek way of life and by changing your manner of living. 9But if by disobedience you arouse my anger, you will compel me to destroy each and every one of you with dreadful punishments through tortures. 10Therefore take pity on yourselves. Even I, your enemy, have compassion for your youth and handsome appearance. 11Will you not consider this, that if you disobey, nothing remains for you but to die on the rack?’
12 When he had said these things, he ordered the instruments of torture to be brought forward so as to persuade them out of fear to eat the defiling food. 13When the guards had placed before them wheels and joint-dislocators, rack and hooks* and catapults* and cauldrons, braziers and thumbscrews and iron claws and wedges and bellows, the tyrant resumed speaking: 14‘Be afraid, young fellows; whatever justice you revere will be merciful to you when you transgress under compulsion.’
15 But when they had heard the inducements and saw the dreadful devices, not only were they not afraid, but they also opposed the tyrant with their own philosophy, and by their right reasoning nullified his tyranny. 16Let us consider, on the other hand, what arguments might have been used if some of them had been cowardly and unmanly. Would they not have been the following? 17‘O wretches that we are and so senseless! Since the king has summoned and exhorted us to accept kind treatment if we obey him, 18why do we take pleasure in vain resolves and venture upon a disobedience that brings death? 19O men and brothers, should we not fear the instruments of torture and consider the threats of torments, and give up this vain opinion and this arrogance that threatens to destroy us? 20Let us take pity on our youth and have compassion on our mother’s age; 21and let us seriously consider that if we disobey we are dead! 22Also, divine justice will excuse us for fearing the king when we are under compulsion. 23Why do we banish ourselves from this most pleasant life and deprive ourselves of this delightful world? 24Let us not struggle against compulsion* or take hollow pride in being put to the rack. 25Not even the law itself would arbitrarily put us to death for fearing the instruments of torture. 26Why does such contentiousness excite us and such a fatal stubbornness please us, when we can live in peace if we obey the king?’
27 But the youths, though about to be tortured, neither said any of these things nor even seriously considered them. 28For they were contemptuous of the emotions and sovereign over agonies, 29so that as soon as the tyrant had ceased counselling them to eat defiling food, all with one voice together, as from one mind, said:
9‘Why do you delay, O tyrant? For we are ready to die rather than transgress our ancestral commandments; 2we are obviously putting our forebears to shame unless we practise ready obedience to the law and to Moses* our counsellor. 3Tyrant and counsellor of lawlessness, in your hatred for us do not pity us more than we pity ourselves.* 4For we consider this pity of yours, which ensures our safety through transgression of the law, to be more grievous than death itself. 5You are trying to terrify us by threatening us with death by torture, as though a short time ago you learned nothing from Eleazar. 6And if the aged men of the Hebrews because of their religion lived piously* while enduring torture, it would be even more fitting that we young men should die despising your coercive tortures, which our aged instructor also overcame. 7Therefore, tyrant, put us to the test; and if you take our lives because of our religion, do not suppose that you can injure us by torturing us. 8For we, through this severe suffering and endurance, shall have the prize of virtue and shall be with God, on whose account we suffer; 9but you, because of your bloodthirstiness towards us, will deservedly undergo from the divine justice eternal torment by fire.’
The Torture of the First and Second Brothers10 When they had said these things, the tyrant was not only indignant, as at those who are disobedient, but also infuriated, as at those who are ungrateful. 11Then at his command the guards brought forward the eldest, and having torn off his tunic, they bound his hands and arms with thongs on each side. 12When they had worn themselves out beating him with scourges, without accomplishing anything, they placed him upon the wheel. 13When the noble youth was stretched out around this, his limbs were dislocated, 14and with every member disjointed he denounced the tyrant, saying, 15‘Most abominable tyrant, enemy of heavenly justice, savage of mind, you are mangling me in this manner, not because I am a murderer, or as one who acts impiously, but because I protect the divine law.’ 16And when the guards said, ‘Agree to eat so that you may be released from the tortures’, 17he replied, ‘You abominable lackeys, your wheel is not so powerful as to strangle my reason. Cut my limbs, burn my flesh, and twist my joints; 18through all these tortures I will convince you that children of the Hebrews alone are invincible where virtue is concerned.’ 19While he was saying these things, they spread fire under him, and while fanning the flames* they tightened the wheel further. 20The wheel was completely smeared with blood, and the heap of coals was being quenched by the drippings of gore, and pieces of flesh were falling off the axles of the machine. 21Although the ligaments joining his bones were already severed, the courageous youth, worthy of Abraham, did not groan, 22but as though transformed by fire into immortality, he nobly endured the rackings. 23‘Imitate me, brothers,’ he said. ‘Do not leave your post in my struggle* or renounce our courageous family ties. 24Fight the sacred and noble battle for religion. Thereby the just Providence of our ancestors may become merciful to our nation and take vengeance on the accursed tyrant.’ 25When he had said this, the saintly youth broke the thread of life.
26 While all were marvelling at his courageous spirit, the guards brought in the next eldest, and after fitting themselves with iron gauntlets having sharp hooks, they bound him to the torture machine and catapult. 27Before torturing him, they inquired if he were willing to eat, and they heard his noble decision.* 28These leopard-like beasts tore out his sinews with the iron hands, flayed all his flesh up to his chin, and tore away his scalp. But he steadfastly endured this agony and said, 29‘How sweet is any kind of death for the religion of our ancestors!’ 30To the tyrant he said, ‘Do you not think, you most savage tyrant, that you are being tortured more than I, as you see the arrogant design of your tyranny being defeated by our endurance for the sake of religion? 31I lighten my pain by the joys that come from virtue, 32but you suffer torture by the threats that come from impiety. You will not escape, you most abominable tyrant, the judgements of the divine wrath.’
5 When Antiochus saw him he said, 6‘Before I begin to torture you, old man, I would advise you to save yourself by eating pork, 7for I respect your age and your grey hairs. Although you have had them for so long a time, it does not seem to me that you are a philosopher when you observe the religion of the Jews. 8When nature has granted it to us, why should you abhor eating the very excellent meat of this animal? 9It is senseless not to enjoy delicious things that are not shameful, and wrong to spurn the gifts of nature. 10It seems to me that you will do something even more senseless if, by holding a vain opinion concerning the truth, you continue to despise me to your own hurt. 11Will you not awaken from your foolish philosophy, dispel your futile reasonings, adopt a mind appropriate to your years, philosophize according to the truth of what is beneficial, 12and have compassion on your old age by honouring my humane advice? 13For consider this: if there is some power watching over this religion of yours, it will excuse you from any transgression that arises out of compulsion.’
14 When the tyrant urged him in this fashion to eat meat unlawfully, Eleazar asked to have a word. 15When he had received permission to speak, he began to address the people as follows: 16‘We, O Antiochus, who have been persuaded to govern our lives by the divine law, think that there is no compulsion more powerful than our obedience to the law. 17Therefore we consider that we should not transgress it in any respect. 18Even if, as you suppose, our law were not truly divine and we had wrongly held it to be divine, not even so would it be right for us to invalidate our reputation for piety. 19Therefore do not suppose that it would be a petty sin if we were to eat defiling food; 20to transgress the law in matters either small or great is of equal seriousness, 21for in either case the law is equally despised. 22You scoff at our philosophy as though living by it were irrational, 23but it teaches us self-control, so that we master all pleasures and desires, and it also trains us in courage, so that we endure any suffering willingly; 24it instructs us in justice, so that in all our dealings we act impartially,* and it teaches us piety, so that with proper reverence we worship the only living God.
25 ‘Therefore we do not eat defiling food; for since we believe that the law was established by God, we know that in the nature of things the Creator of the world in giving us the law has shown sympathy towards us. 26He has permitted us to eat what will be most suitable for our lives,* but he has forbidden us to eat meats that would be contrary to this. 27It would be tyrannical for you to compel us not only to transgress the law, but also to eat in such a way that you may deride us for eating defiling foods, which are most hateful to us. 28But you shall have no such occasion to laugh at me, 29nor will I transgress the sacred oaths of my ancestors concerning the keeping of the law, 30not even if you gouge out my eyes and burn my entrails. 31I am not so old and cowardly as not to be young in reason on behalf of piety. 32Therefore get your torture wheels ready and fan the fire more vehemently! 33I do not so pity my old age as to break the ancestral law by my own act. 34I will not play false to you, O law that trained me, nor will I renounce you, beloved self-control. 35I will not put you to shame, philosophical reason, nor will I reject you, honoured priesthood and knowledge of the law. 36You, O king,* shall not defile the honourable mouth of my old age, nor my long life lived lawfully. 37My ancestors will receive me as pure, as one who does not fear your violence even to death. 38You may tyrannize the ungodly, but you shall not dominate my religious principles, either by words or through deeds.’
Martyrdom of Eleazar6When Eleazar in this manner had made eloquent response to the exhortations of the tyrant, the guards who were standing by dragged him violently to the instruments of torture. 2First they stripped the old man, though he remained adorned with the gracefulness of his piety. 3After they had tied his arms on each side they flogged him, 4while a herald who faced him cried out, ‘Obey the king’s commands!’ 5But the courageous and noble man, like a true Eleazar, was unmoved, as though being tortured in a dream; 6yet while the old man’s eyes were raised to heaven, his flesh was being torn by scourges, his blood flowing, and his sides were being cut to pieces. 7Although he fell to the ground because his body could not endure the agonies, he kept his reason upright and unswerving. 8One of the cruel guards rushed at him and began to kick him in the side to make him get up again after he fell. 9But he bore the pains and scorned the punishment and endured the tortures. 10Like a noble athlete the old man, while being beaten, was victorious over his torturers; 11in fact, with his face bathed in sweat, and gasping heavily for breath, he amazed even his torturers by his courageous spirit.
12 At that point, partly out of pity for his old age, 13partly out of sympathy from their acquaintance with him, partly out of admiration for his endurance, some of the king’s retinue came to him and said, 14‘Eleazar, why are you so irrationally destroying yourself through these evil things? 15We will set before you some cooked meat; save yourself by pretending to eat pork.’
16 But Eleazar, as though more bitterly tormented by this counsel, cried out: 17‘Never may we, the children of Abraham,* think so basely that out of cowardice we feign a role unbecoming to us! 18For it would be irrational if, having lived in accordance with truth up to old age and having maintained in accordance with law the reputation of such a life, we should now change our course 19and ourselves become a pattern of impiety to the young by setting them an example in the eating of defiling food. 20It would be shameful if we should survive for a little while and during that time be a laughings-tock to all for our cowardice, 21and be despised by the tyrant as unmanly by not contending even to death for our divine law. 22Therefore, O children of Abraham, die nobly for your religion! 23And you, guards of the tyrant, why do you delay?’
24 When they saw that he was so courageous in the face of the afflictions, and that he had not been changed by their compassion, the guards brought him to the fire. 25There they burned him with maliciously contrived instruments, threw him down, and poured stinking liquids into his nostrils. 26When he was now burned to his very bones and about to expire, he lifted up his eyes to God and said, 27‘You know, O God, that though I might have saved myself, I am dying in burning torments for the sake of the law. 28Be merciful to your people, and let our punishment suffice for them. 29Make my blood their purification, and take my life in exchange for theirs.’ 30After he said this, the holy man died nobly in his tortures; even in the tortures of death he resisted, by virtue of reason, for the sake of the law.
31 Admittedly, then, devout reason is sovereign over the emotions. 32For if the emotions had prevailed over reason, we would have testified to their domination. 33But now that reason has conquered the emotions, we properly attribute to it the power to govern. 34It is right for us to acknowledge the dominance of reason when it masters even external agonies. It would be ridiculous to deny it.* 35I have proved not only that reason has mastered agonies, but also that it masters pleasures and in no respect yields to them.
An Encomium on Eleazar7For like a most skilful pilot, the reason of our father Eleazar steered the ship of religion over the sea of the emotions, 2and, though buffeted by the stormings of the tyrant and overwhelmed by the mighty waves of tortures, 3in no way did he turn the rudder of religion until he sailed into the haven of immortal victory. 4No city besieged with many ingenious war machines has ever held out as did that most holy man. Although his sacred life was consumed by tortures and racks, he conquered the besiegers with the shield of his devout reason. 5For in setting his mind firm like a jutting cliff, our father Eleazar broke the maddening waves of the emotions. 6O priest, worthy of the priesthood, you neither defiled your sacred teeth nor profaned your stomach, which had room only for reverence and purity, by eating defiling foods. 7O man in harmony with the law and philosopher of divine life! 8Such should be those who are administrators of the law, shielding it with their own blood and noble sweat in sufferings even to death. 9You, father, strengthened our loyalty to the law through your glorious endurance, and you did not abandon the holiness that you praised, but by your deeds you made your words of divine* philosophy credible. 10O aged man, more powerful than tortures; O elder, fiercer than fire; O supreme king over the passions, Eleazar! 11For just as our father Aaron, armed with the censer, ran through the multitude of the people and conquered the fiery* angel, 12so the descendant of Aaron, Eleazar, though being consumed by the fire, remained unmoved in his reason. 13Most amazing, indeed, though he was an old man, his body no longer tense and firm,* his muscles flabby, his sinews feeble, he became young again 14in spirit through reason; and by reason like that of Isaac he rendered the many-headed rack ineffective. 15O man of blessed age and of venerable grey hair and of law-abiding life, whom the faithful seal of death has perfected!
16 If, therefore, because of piety an aged man despised tortures even to death, most certainly devout reason is governor of the emotions. 17Some perhaps might say, ‘Not all have full command of their emotions, because not all have prudent reason.’ 18But as many as attend to religion with a whole heart, these alone are able to control the passions of the flesh, 19since they believe that they, like our patriarchs Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, do not die to God, but live to God. 20No contradiction therefore arises when some persons appear to be dominated by their emotions because of the weakness of their reason. 21What person who lives as a philosopher by the whole rule of philosophy, and trusts in God, 22and knows that it is blessed to endure any suffering for the sake of virtue, would not be able to overcome the emotions through godliness? 23For only the wise and courageous are masters of their emotions.
Seven Brothers Defy the Tyrant8For this is why even the very young, by following a philosophy in accordance with devout reason, have prevailed over the most painful instruments of torture. 2For when the tyrant was conspicuously defeated in his first attempt, being unable to compel an aged man to eat defiling foods, then in violent rage he commanded that others of the Hebrew captives be brought, and that any who ate defiling food would be freed after eating, but if any were to refuse, they would be tortured even more cruelly.
3 When the tyrant had given these orders, seven brothers—handsome, modest, noble, and accomplished in every way—were brought before him along with their aged mother. 4When the tyrant saw them, grouped about their mother as though a chorus, he was pleased with them. And struck by their appearance and nobility, he smiled at them, and summoned them nearer and said, 5‘Young men, with favourable feelings I admire each and every one of you, and greatly respect the beauty and the number of such brothers. Not only do I advise you not to display the same madness as that of the old man who has just been tortured, but I also exhort you to yield to me and enjoy my friendship. 6Just as I am able to punish those who disobey my orders, so I can be a benefactor to those who obey me. 7Trust me, then, and you will have positions of authority in my government if you will renounce the ancestral tradition of your national life. 8Enjoy your youth by adopting the Greek way of life and by changing your manner of living. 9But if by disobedience you arouse my anger, you will compel me to destroy each and every one of you with dreadful punishments through tortures. 10Therefore take pity on yourselves. Even I, your enemy, have compassion for your youth and handsome appearance. 11Will you not consider this, that if you disobey, nothing remains for you but to die on the rack?’
12 When he had said these things, he ordered the instruments of torture to be brought forward so as to persuade them out of fear to eat the defiling food. 13When the guards had placed before them wheels and joint-dislocators, rack and hooks* and catapults* and cauldrons, braziers and thumbscrews and iron claws and wedges and bellows, the tyrant resumed speaking: 14‘Be afraid, young fellows; whatever justice you revere will be merciful to you when you transgress under compulsion.’
15 But when they had heard the inducements and saw the dreadful devices, not only were they not afraid, but they also opposed the tyrant with their own philosophy, and by their right reasoning nullified his tyranny. 16Let us consider, on the other hand, what arguments might have been used if some of them had been cowardly and unmanly. Would they not have been the following? 17‘O wretches that we are and so senseless! Since the king has summoned and exhorted us to accept kind treatment if we obey him, 18why do we take pleasure in vain resolves and venture upon a disobedience that brings death? 19O men and brothers, should we not fear the instruments of torture and consider the threats of torments, and give up this vain opinion and this arrogance that threatens to destroy us? 20Let us take pity on our youth and have compassion on our mother’s age; 21and let us seriously consider that if we disobey we are dead! 22Also, divine justice will excuse us for fearing the king when we are under compulsion. 23Why do we banish ourselves from this most pleasant life and deprive ourselves of this delightful world? 24Let us not struggle against compulsion* or take hollow pride in being put to the rack. 25Not even the law itself would arbitrarily put us to death for fearing the instruments of torture. 26Why does such contentiousness excite us and such a fatal stubbornness please us, when we can live in peace if we obey the king?’
27 But the youths, though about to be tortured, neither said any of these things nor even seriously considered them. 28For they were contemptuous of the emotions and sovereign over agonies, 29so that as soon as the tyrant had ceased counselling them to eat defiling food, all with one voice together, as from one mind, said:
9‘Why do you delay, O tyrant? For we are ready to die rather than transgress our ancestral commandments; 2we are obviously putting our forebears to shame unless we practise ready obedience to the law and to Moses* our counsellor. 3Tyrant and counsellor of lawlessness, in your hatred for us do not pity us more than we pity ourselves.* 4For we consider this pity of yours, which ensures our safety through transgression of the law, to be more grievous than death itself. 5You are trying to terrify us by threatening us with death by torture, as though a short time ago you learned nothing from Eleazar. 6And if the aged men of the Hebrews because of their religion lived piously* while enduring torture, it would be even more fitting that we young men should die despising your coercive tortures, which our aged instructor also overcame. 7Therefore, tyrant, put us to the test; and if you take our lives because of our religion, do not suppose that you can injure us by torturing us. 8For we, through this severe suffering and endurance, shall have the prize of virtue and shall be with God, on whose account we suffer; 9but you, because of your bloodthirstiness towards us, will deservedly undergo from the divine justice eternal torment by fire.’
The Torture of the First and Second Brothers10 When they had said these things, the tyrant was not only indignant, as at those who are disobedient, but also infuriated, as at those who are ungrateful. 11Then at his command the guards brought forward the eldest, and having torn off his tunic, they bound his hands and arms with thongs on each side. 12When they had worn themselves out beating him with scourges, without accomplishing anything, they placed him upon the wheel. 13When the noble youth was stretched out around this, his limbs were dislocated, 14and with every member disjointed he denounced the tyrant, saying, 15‘Most abominable tyrant, enemy of heavenly justice, savage of mind, you are mangling me in this manner, not because I am a murderer, or as one who acts impiously, but because I protect the divine law.’ 16And when the guards said, ‘Agree to eat so that you may be released from the tortures’, 17he replied, ‘You abominable lackeys, your wheel is not so powerful as to strangle my reason. Cut my limbs, burn my flesh, and twist my joints; 18through all these tortures I will convince you that children of the Hebrews alone are invincible where virtue is concerned.’ 19While he was saying these things, they spread fire under him, and while fanning the flames* they tightened the wheel further. 20The wheel was completely smeared with blood, and the heap of coals was being quenched by the drippings of gore, and pieces of flesh were falling off the axles of the machine. 21Although the ligaments joining his bones were already severed, the courageous youth, worthy of Abraham, did not groan, 22but as though transformed by fire into immortality, he nobly endured the rackings. 23‘Imitate me, brothers,’ he said. ‘Do not leave your post in my struggle* or renounce our courageous family ties. 24Fight the sacred and noble battle for religion. Thereby the just Providence of our ancestors may become merciful to our nation and take vengeance on the accursed tyrant.’ 25When he had said this, the saintly youth broke the thread of life.
26 While all were marvelling at his courageous spirit, the guards brought in the next eldest, and after fitting themselves with iron gauntlets having sharp hooks, they bound him to the torture machine and catapult. 27Before torturing him, they inquired if he were willing to eat, and they heard his noble decision.* 28These leopard-like beasts tore out his sinews with the iron hands, flayed all his flesh up to his chin, and tore away his scalp. But he steadfastly endured this agony and said, 29‘How sweet is any kind of death for the religion of our ancestors!’ 30To the tyrant he said, ‘Do you not think, you most savage tyrant, that you are being tortured more than I, as you see the arrogant design of your tyranny being defeated by our endurance for the sake of religion? 31I lighten my pain by the joys that come from virtue, 32but you suffer torture by the threats that come from impiety. You will not escape, you most abominable tyrant, the judgements of the divine wrath.’
May 17 4 Maccabees 1-4
1The subject that I am about to discuss is most philosophical, that is, whether devout reason is sovereign over the emotions. So it is right for me to advise you to pay earnest attention to philosophy. 2For the subject is essential to everyone who is seeking knowledge, and in addition it includes the praise of the highest virtue—I mean, of course, rational judgement. 3If, then, it is evident that reason rules over those emotions that hinder self-control, namely gluttony and lust, 4it is also clear that it masters the emotions that hinder one from justice, such as malice, and those that stand in the way of courage, namely anger, fear, and pain. 5Some might perhaps ask, ‘If reason rules the emotions, why is it not sovereign over forgetfulness and ignorance?’ Their attempt at argument is ridiculous!* 6For reason does not rule its own emotions, but those that are opposed to justice, courage, and self-control;* and it is not for the purpose of destroying them, but so that one may not give way to them.
7 I could prove to you from many and various examples that reason* is dominant over the emotions, 8but I can demonstrate it best from the noble bravery of those who died for the sake of virtue, Eleazar and the seven brothers and their mother. 9All of these, by despising sufferings that bring death, demonstrated that reason controls the emotions. 10On this anniversary* it is fitting for me to praise for their virtues those who, with their mother, died for the sake of nobility and goodness, but I would also call them blessed for the honour in which they are held. 11All people, even their torturers, marvelled at their courage and endurance, and they became the cause of the downfall of tyranny over their nation. By their endurance they conquered the tyrant, and thus their native land was purified through them. 12I shall shortly have an opportunity to speak of this; but, as my custom is, I shall begin by stating my main principle, and then I shall turn to their story, giving glory to the all-wise God.
The Supremacy of Reason13 Our inquiry, accordingly, is whether reason is sovereign over the emotions. 14We shall decide just what reason is and what emotion is, how many kinds of emotions there are, and whether reason rules over all of these. 15Now reason is the mind that with sound logic prefers the life of wisdom. 16Wisdom, next, is the knowledge of divine and human matters and the causes of these. 17This, in turn, is education in the law, by which we learn divine matters reverently and human affairs to our advantage. 18Now the kinds of wisdom are rational judgement, justice, courage, and self-control. 19Rational judgement is supreme over all of these, since by means of it reason rules over the emotions. 20The two most comprehensive types* of the emotions are pleasure and pain; and each of these is by nature concerned with both body and soul. 21The emotions of both pleasure and pain have many consequences. 22Thus desire precedes pleasure and delight follows it. 23Fear precedes pain and sorrow comes after. 24Anger, as a person will see by reflecting on this experience, is an emotion embracing pleasure and pain. 25In pleasure there exists even a malevolent tendency, which is the most complex of all the emotions. 26In the soul it is boastfulness, covetousness, thirst for honour, rivalry, and malice; 27in the body, indiscriminate eating, gluttony, and solitary gormandizing.
28 Just as pleasure and pain are two plants growing from the body and the soul, so there are many offshoots of these plants,* 29each of which the master cultivator, reason, weeds and prunes and ties up and waters and thoroughly irrigates, and so tames the jungle of habits and emotions. 30For reason is the guide of the virtues, but over the emotions it is sovereign.
Observe now, first of all, that rational judgement is sovereign over the emotions by virtue of the restraining power of self-control. 31Self-control, then, is dominance over the desires. 32Some desires are mental, others are physical, and reason obviously rules over both. 33Otherwise how is it that when we are attracted to forbidden foods we abstain from the pleasure to be had from them? Is it not because reason is able to rule over appetites? I for one think so. 34Therefore when we crave seafood and fowl and animals and all sorts of foods that are forbidden to us by the law, we abstain because of domination by reason. 35For the emotions of the appetites are restrained, checked by the temperate mind, and all the impulses of the body are bridled by reason.
Compatibility of the Law with Reason2And why is it amazing that the desires of the mind for the enjoyment of beauty are rendered powerless? 2It is for this reason, certainly, that the temperate Joseph is praised, because by mental effort* he overcame sexual desire. 3For when he was young and in his prime for intercourse, by his reason he nullified the frenzy* of the passions. 4Not only is reason proved to rule over the frenzied urge of sexual desire, but also over every desire.* 5Thus the law says, ‘You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife or anything that is your neighbour’s.’ 6In fact, since the law has told us not to covet, I could prove to you all the more that reason is able to control desires.
Just so it is with the emotions that hinder one from justice. 7Otherwise how could it be that someone who is habitually a solitary gormandizer, a glutton, or even a drunkard can learn a better way, unless reason is clearly lord of the emotions? 8Thus, as soon as one adopts a way of life in accordance with the law, even though a lover of money, one is forced to act contrary to natural ways and to lend without interest to the needy and to cancel the debt when the seventh year arrives. 9If one is greedy, one is ruled by the law through reason so that one neither gleans the harvest nor gathers the last grapes from the vineyard.
In all other matters we can recognize that reason rules the emotions. 10For the law prevails even over affection for parents, so that virtue is not abandoned for their sakes. 11It is superior to love for one’s wife, so that one rebukes her when she breaks the law. 12It takes precedence over love for children, so that one punishes them for misdeeds. 13It is sovereign over the relationship of friends, so that one rebukes friends when they act wickedly. 14Do not consider it paradoxical when reason, through the law, can prevail even over enmity. The fruit trees of the enemy are not cut down, but one preserves the property of enemies from marauders and helps raise up what has fallen.*
15 It is evident that reason rules even* the more violent emotions: lust for power, vainglory, boasting, arrogance, and malice. 16For the temperate mind repels all these malicious emotions, just as it repels anger—for it is sovereign over even this. 17When Moses was angry with Dathan and Abiram, he did nothing against them in anger, but controlled his anger by reason. 18For, as I have said, the temperate mind is able to get the better of the emotions, to correct some, and to render others powerless. 19Why else did Jacob, our most wise father, censure the households of Simeon and Levi for their irrational slaughter of the entire tribe of the Shechemites, saying, ‘Cursed be their anger’? 20For if reason could not control anger, he would not have spoken thus. 21Now when God fashioned human beings, he planted in them emotions and inclinations, 22but at the same time he enthroned the mind among the senses as a sacred governor over them all. 23To the mind he gave the law; and one who lives subject to this will rule a kingdom that is temperate, just, good, and courageous.
24 How is it then, one might say, that if reason is master of the emotions, it does not control forgetfulness and ignorance? 31But this argument is entirely ridiculous; for it is evident that reason rules not over its own emotions, but over those of the body. 2No one of us* can eradicate that kind of desire, but reason can provide a way for us not to be enslaved by desire. 3No one of us can eradicate anger from the mind, but reason can help to deal with anger. 4No one of us can eradicate malice, but reason can fight at our side so that we are not overcome by malice. 5For reason does not uproot the emotions but is their antagonist.
King David’s Thirst6 Now this can be explained more clearly by the story of King David’s thirst. 7David had been attacking the Philistines all day long, and together with the soldiers of his nation had killed many of them. 8Then when evening fell, he* came, sweating and quite exhausted, to the royal tent, around which the whole army of our ancestors had encamped. 9Now all the rest were at supper, 10but the king was extremely thirsty, and though springs were plentiful there, he could not satisfy his thirst from them. 11But a certain irrational desire for the water in the enemy’s territory tormented and inflamed him, undid and consumed him. 12When his guards complained bitterly because of the king’s craving, two staunch young soldiers, respecting* the king’s desire, armed themselves fully, and taking a pitcher climbed over the enemy’s ramparts. 13Eluding the sentinels at the gates, they went searching throughout the enemy camp 14and found the spring, and from it boldly brought the king a drink. 15But David,* though he was burning with thirst, considered it an altogether fearful danger to his soul to drink what was regarded as equivalent to blood. 16Therefore, opposing reason to desire, he poured out the drink as an offering to God. 17For the temperate mind can conquer the drives of the emotions and quench the flames of frenzied desires; 18it can overthrow bodily agonies even when they are extreme, and by nobility of reason spurn all domination by the emotions.
An Attempt on the Temple Treasury19 The present occasion now invites us to a narrative demonstration of temperate reason.
20 At a time when our ancestors were enjoying profound peace because of their observance of the law and were prospering, so that even Seleucus Nicanor, king of Asia, had both appropriated money to them for the temple service and recognized their commonwealth— 21just at that time certain persons attempted a revolution against the public harmony and caused many and various disasters.
4Now there was a certain Simon, a political opponent of the noble and good man, Onias, who then held the high-priesthood for life. When despite all manner of slander he was unable to injure Onias in the eyes of the nation, he fled the country with the purpose of betraying it. 2So he came to Apollonius, governor of Syria, Phoenicia, and Cilicia, and said, 3‘I have come here because I am loyal to the king’s government, to report that in the Jerusalem treasuries there are deposited tens of thousands in private funds, which are not the property of the temple but belong to King Seleucus.’ 4When Apollonius learned the details of these things, he praised Simon for his service to the king and went up to Seleucus to inform him of the rich treasure. 5On receiving authority to deal with this matter, he proceeded quickly to our country accompanied by the accursed Simon and a very strong military force. 6He said that he had come with the king’s authority to seize the private funds in the treasury. 7The people indignantly protested against his words, considering it outrageous that those who had committed deposits to the sacred treasury should be deprived of them, and did all that they could to prevent it. 8But, uttering threats, Apollonius went on to the temple. 9While the priests together with women and children were imploring God in the temple to shield the holy place that was being treated so contemptuously, 10and while Apollonius was going up with his armed forces to seize the money, angels mounted on horses with lightning flashing from their weapons appeared from heaven, instilling in them great fear and trembling. 11Then Apollonius fell down half dead in the temple area that was open to all, stretched out his hands towards heaven, and with tears begged the Hebrews to pray for him and propitiate the wrath of the heavenly army. 12For he said that he had committed a sin deserving of death, and that if he were spared he would praise the blessedness of the holy place before all people. 13Moved by these words, the high priest Onias, although otherwise he had scruples about doing so, prayed for him so that King Seleucus would not suppose that Apollonius had been overcome by human treachery and not by divine justice. 14So Apollonius,* having been saved beyond all expectations, went away to report to the king what had happened to him.
Antiochus’ Persecution of the Jews15 When King Seleucus died, his son Antiochus Epiphanes succeeded to the throne, an arrogant and terrible man, 16who removed Onias from the priesthood and appointed Onias’s* brother Jason as high priest. 17Jason* agreed that if the office were conferred on him he would pay the king three thousand six hundred and sixty talents annually. 18So the king appointed him high priest and ruler of the nation. 19Jason* changed the nation’s way of life and altered its form of government in complete violation of the law, 20so that not only was a gymnasium constructed at the very citadel* of our native land, but also the temple service was abolished. 21The divine justice was angered by these acts and caused Antiochus himself to make war on them. 22For when he was warring against Ptolemy in Egypt, he heard that a rumour of his death had spread and that the people of Jerusalem had rejoiced greatly. He speedily marched against them, 23and after he had plundered them he issued a decree that if any of them were found observing the ancestral law they should die. 24When, by means of his decrees, he had not been able in any way to put an end to the people’s observance of the law, but saw that all his threats and punishments were being disregarded— 25even to the extent that women, because they had circumcised their sons, were thrown headlong from heights along with their infants, though they had known beforehand that they would suffer this— 26when, I say, his decrees were despised by the people, he himself tried through torture to compel everyone in the nation to eat defiling foods and to renounce Judaism.
7 I could prove to you from many and various examples that reason* is dominant over the emotions, 8but I can demonstrate it best from the noble bravery of those who died for the sake of virtue, Eleazar and the seven brothers and their mother. 9All of these, by despising sufferings that bring death, demonstrated that reason controls the emotions. 10On this anniversary* it is fitting for me to praise for their virtues those who, with their mother, died for the sake of nobility and goodness, but I would also call them blessed for the honour in which they are held. 11All people, even their torturers, marvelled at their courage and endurance, and they became the cause of the downfall of tyranny over their nation. By their endurance they conquered the tyrant, and thus their native land was purified through them. 12I shall shortly have an opportunity to speak of this; but, as my custom is, I shall begin by stating my main principle, and then I shall turn to their story, giving glory to the all-wise God.
The Supremacy of Reason13 Our inquiry, accordingly, is whether reason is sovereign over the emotions. 14We shall decide just what reason is and what emotion is, how many kinds of emotions there are, and whether reason rules over all of these. 15Now reason is the mind that with sound logic prefers the life of wisdom. 16Wisdom, next, is the knowledge of divine and human matters and the causes of these. 17This, in turn, is education in the law, by which we learn divine matters reverently and human affairs to our advantage. 18Now the kinds of wisdom are rational judgement, justice, courage, and self-control. 19Rational judgement is supreme over all of these, since by means of it reason rules over the emotions. 20The two most comprehensive types* of the emotions are pleasure and pain; and each of these is by nature concerned with both body and soul. 21The emotions of both pleasure and pain have many consequences. 22Thus desire precedes pleasure and delight follows it. 23Fear precedes pain and sorrow comes after. 24Anger, as a person will see by reflecting on this experience, is an emotion embracing pleasure and pain. 25In pleasure there exists even a malevolent tendency, which is the most complex of all the emotions. 26In the soul it is boastfulness, covetousness, thirst for honour, rivalry, and malice; 27in the body, indiscriminate eating, gluttony, and solitary gormandizing.
28 Just as pleasure and pain are two plants growing from the body and the soul, so there are many offshoots of these plants,* 29each of which the master cultivator, reason, weeds and prunes and ties up and waters and thoroughly irrigates, and so tames the jungle of habits and emotions. 30For reason is the guide of the virtues, but over the emotions it is sovereign.
Observe now, first of all, that rational judgement is sovereign over the emotions by virtue of the restraining power of self-control. 31Self-control, then, is dominance over the desires. 32Some desires are mental, others are physical, and reason obviously rules over both. 33Otherwise how is it that when we are attracted to forbidden foods we abstain from the pleasure to be had from them? Is it not because reason is able to rule over appetites? I for one think so. 34Therefore when we crave seafood and fowl and animals and all sorts of foods that are forbidden to us by the law, we abstain because of domination by reason. 35For the emotions of the appetites are restrained, checked by the temperate mind, and all the impulses of the body are bridled by reason.
Compatibility of the Law with Reason2And why is it amazing that the desires of the mind for the enjoyment of beauty are rendered powerless? 2It is for this reason, certainly, that the temperate Joseph is praised, because by mental effort* he overcame sexual desire. 3For when he was young and in his prime for intercourse, by his reason he nullified the frenzy* of the passions. 4Not only is reason proved to rule over the frenzied urge of sexual desire, but also over every desire.* 5Thus the law says, ‘You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife or anything that is your neighbour’s.’ 6In fact, since the law has told us not to covet, I could prove to you all the more that reason is able to control desires.
Just so it is with the emotions that hinder one from justice. 7Otherwise how could it be that someone who is habitually a solitary gormandizer, a glutton, or even a drunkard can learn a better way, unless reason is clearly lord of the emotions? 8Thus, as soon as one adopts a way of life in accordance with the law, even though a lover of money, one is forced to act contrary to natural ways and to lend without interest to the needy and to cancel the debt when the seventh year arrives. 9If one is greedy, one is ruled by the law through reason so that one neither gleans the harvest nor gathers the last grapes from the vineyard.
In all other matters we can recognize that reason rules the emotions. 10For the law prevails even over affection for parents, so that virtue is not abandoned for their sakes. 11It is superior to love for one’s wife, so that one rebukes her when she breaks the law. 12It takes precedence over love for children, so that one punishes them for misdeeds. 13It is sovereign over the relationship of friends, so that one rebukes friends when they act wickedly. 14Do not consider it paradoxical when reason, through the law, can prevail even over enmity. The fruit trees of the enemy are not cut down, but one preserves the property of enemies from marauders and helps raise up what has fallen.*
15 It is evident that reason rules even* the more violent emotions: lust for power, vainglory, boasting, arrogance, and malice. 16For the temperate mind repels all these malicious emotions, just as it repels anger—for it is sovereign over even this. 17When Moses was angry with Dathan and Abiram, he did nothing against them in anger, but controlled his anger by reason. 18For, as I have said, the temperate mind is able to get the better of the emotions, to correct some, and to render others powerless. 19Why else did Jacob, our most wise father, censure the households of Simeon and Levi for their irrational slaughter of the entire tribe of the Shechemites, saying, ‘Cursed be their anger’? 20For if reason could not control anger, he would not have spoken thus. 21Now when God fashioned human beings, he planted in them emotions and inclinations, 22but at the same time he enthroned the mind among the senses as a sacred governor over them all. 23To the mind he gave the law; and one who lives subject to this will rule a kingdom that is temperate, just, good, and courageous.
24 How is it then, one might say, that if reason is master of the emotions, it does not control forgetfulness and ignorance? 31But this argument is entirely ridiculous; for it is evident that reason rules not over its own emotions, but over those of the body. 2No one of us* can eradicate that kind of desire, but reason can provide a way for us not to be enslaved by desire. 3No one of us can eradicate anger from the mind, but reason can help to deal with anger. 4No one of us can eradicate malice, but reason can fight at our side so that we are not overcome by malice. 5For reason does not uproot the emotions but is their antagonist.
King David’s Thirst6 Now this can be explained more clearly by the story of King David’s thirst. 7David had been attacking the Philistines all day long, and together with the soldiers of his nation had killed many of them. 8Then when evening fell, he* came, sweating and quite exhausted, to the royal tent, around which the whole army of our ancestors had encamped. 9Now all the rest were at supper, 10but the king was extremely thirsty, and though springs were plentiful there, he could not satisfy his thirst from them. 11But a certain irrational desire for the water in the enemy’s territory tormented and inflamed him, undid and consumed him. 12When his guards complained bitterly because of the king’s craving, two staunch young soldiers, respecting* the king’s desire, armed themselves fully, and taking a pitcher climbed over the enemy’s ramparts. 13Eluding the sentinels at the gates, they went searching throughout the enemy camp 14and found the spring, and from it boldly brought the king a drink. 15But David,* though he was burning with thirst, considered it an altogether fearful danger to his soul to drink what was regarded as equivalent to blood. 16Therefore, opposing reason to desire, he poured out the drink as an offering to God. 17For the temperate mind can conquer the drives of the emotions and quench the flames of frenzied desires; 18it can overthrow bodily agonies even when they are extreme, and by nobility of reason spurn all domination by the emotions.
An Attempt on the Temple Treasury19 The present occasion now invites us to a narrative demonstration of temperate reason.
20 At a time when our ancestors were enjoying profound peace because of their observance of the law and were prospering, so that even Seleucus Nicanor, king of Asia, had both appropriated money to them for the temple service and recognized their commonwealth— 21just at that time certain persons attempted a revolution against the public harmony and caused many and various disasters.
4Now there was a certain Simon, a political opponent of the noble and good man, Onias, who then held the high-priesthood for life. When despite all manner of slander he was unable to injure Onias in the eyes of the nation, he fled the country with the purpose of betraying it. 2So he came to Apollonius, governor of Syria, Phoenicia, and Cilicia, and said, 3‘I have come here because I am loyal to the king’s government, to report that in the Jerusalem treasuries there are deposited tens of thousands in private funds, which are not the property of the temple but belong to King Seleucus.’ 4When Apollonius learned the details of these things, he praised Simon for his service to the king and went up to Seleucus to inform him of the rich treasure. 5On receiving authority to deal with this matter, he proceeded quickly to our country accompanied by the accursed Simon and a very strong military force. 6He said that he had come with the king’s authority to seize the private funds in the treasury. 7The people indignantly protested against his words, considering it outrageous that those who had committed deposits to the sacred treasury should be deprived of them, and did all that they could to prevent it. 8But, uttering threats, Apollonius went on to the temple. 9While the priests together with women and children were imploring God in the temple to shield the holy place that was being treated so contemptuously, 10and while Apollonius was going up with his armed forces to seize the money, angels mounted on horses with lightning flashing from their weapons appeared from heaven, instilling in them great fear and trembling. 11Then Apollonius fell down half dead in the temple area that was open to all, stretched out his hands towards heaven, and with tears begged the Hebrews to pray for him and propitiate the wrath of the heavenly army. 12For he said that he had committed a sin deserving of death, and that if he were spared he would praise the blessedness of the holy place before all people. 13Moved by these words, the high priest Onias, although otherwise he had scruples about doing so, prayed for him so that King Seleucus would not suppose that Apollonius had been overcome by human treachery and not by divine justice. 14So Apollonius,* having been saved beyond all expectations, went away to report to the king what had happened to him.
Antiochus’ Persecution of the Jews15 When King Seleucus died, his son Antiochus Epiphanes succeeded to the throne, an arrogant and terrible man, 16who removed Onias from the priesthood and appointed Onias’s* brother Jason as high priest. 17Jason* agreed that if the office were conferred on him he would pay the king three thousand six hundred and sixty talents annually. 18So the king appointed him high priest and ruler of the nation. 19Jason* changed the nation’s way of life and altered its form of government in complete violation of the law, 20so that not only was a gymnasium constructed at the very citadel* of our native land, but also the temple service was abolished. 21The divine justice was angered by these acts and caused Antiochus himself to make war on them. 22For when he was warring against Ptolemy in Egypt, he heard that a rumour of his death had spread and that the people of Jerusalem had rejoiced greatly. He speedily marched against them, 23and after he had plundered them he issued a decree that if any of them were found observing the ancestral law they should die. 24When, by means of his decrees, he had not been able in any way to put an end to the people’s observance of the law, but saw that all his threats and punishments were being disregarded— 25even to the extent that women, because they had circumcised their sons, were thrown headlong from heights along with their infants, though they had known beforehand that they would suffer this— 26when, I say, his decrees were despised by the people, he himself tried through torture to compel everyone in the nation to eat defiling foods and to renounce Judaism.
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