Brotherly Affection and Courage

1 More than that, they even urged one another on to the torture, so that they not only despised pain, but also mastered the emotions of brotherly love. 2 Reasoning, more royal than kings and freer than the free! 3 What a holy and harmonious symphony of the seven brothers for the sake of piety!⁠a 4 None of the seven young men turned coward or shrank back from death. 5 Instead, all of them, as though running on the road to immortality, hurried toward death by torture. 6 Just as the hands and feet move in harmony with the soul’s direction, so those holy boys, as though moved by the immortal soul of piety, agreed together to die for its sake. 7 Most holy seven, brothers in harmony! For just as the seven days of creation encircle piety, 8 so the boys, dancing in a circle around the number seven, broke the fear of torture. 9 We shudder now as we hear about the suffering of those young men, but they not only saw it, and not only heard the threat spoken in the moment, but suffered it and endured, and that through the pains of fire. 10 What could be more painful? For the power of fire is sharp and swift, and it quickly destroyed their bodies.

The Mother Remains Faithful to the Torah

11 Don’t consider it amazing that reasoning mastered those men in their torments, since even a woman’s mind despised even more varied pains. 12 For the mother of the seven young men endured the tortures of each one of her children. 13 Consider how complex a mother’s love for her children is, which draws everything toward the feelings of her inmost heart. 14 Even irrational animals have a sympathy and love for their offspring like that of human beings. 15 Among birds, the tame ones that nest on the roofs of houses protect their young, 16 and others that build nests and hatch their young on mountain peaks, on steep cliffs, and in the holes and tops of trees keep away anyone who approaches. 17 If they cannot keep them away, they fly in circles around their young in the anguish of love, calling out in their own voice, and help their young in whatever way they can. 18 But why should we use irrational animals to show sympathy for children, 19 when even bees, at the time of making their honeycomb, defend themselves against intruders, strike those who approach their hive with their stings as if with iron, and fight them off to the death? 20 But sympathy for her children did not move the mother of the young men, whose soul was like Abraham’s.