13
For, bear in mind, that if there be any power which watches over this religion of yours, it will pardon you for all transgressions of the law which you commit through compulsion.
14
While the tyrant incited him in this manner to the unlawful eating of flesh, Eleazar begged permission to speak.
15
And having received power to speak, he began thus to deliver himself:
16
We, O Antiochus, who are persuaded that we live under a divine law, consider no compulsion to be so forcible as obedience to that law;
17
wherefore we consider that we ought not in any point to transgress the law.
The Brenton translation of the Septuagint is in the public domain.