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On another occasion a Jewish mother and her seven sons were arrested. The king was having them beaten to force them to eat pork.
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Then one of the young men said, "What do you hope to gain by doing this? We would rather die than abandon the traditions of our ancestors."
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This made the king so furious that he gave orders for huge pans and kettles to be heated red hot,
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and it was done immediately. Then he told his men to cut off the tongue of the one who had spoken and to scalp him and chop off his hands and feet, while his mother and six brothers looked on.
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After the young man had been reduced to a helpless mass of breathing flesh, the king gave orders for him to be carried over and thrown into one of the pans. As a cloud of smoke streamed up from the pan, the brothers and their mother encouraged one another to die bravely, saying,
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"The Lord God is looking on and understands our suffering. Moses made this clear when he wrote a song condemning those who had abandoned the Lord. He said, "The Lord will have mercy on those who serve him.' "
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After the first brother had died in this way, the soldiers started amusing themselves with the second one by tearing the hair and skin from his head. Then they asked him, "Now will you eat this pork, or do you want us to chop off your hands and feet one by one?"
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He replied in his native language, "I will never eat it!" So the soldiers tortured him, just as they had the first one,
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but with his dying breath he cried out to the king, "You butcher! You may kill us, but the King of the universe will raise us from the dead and give us eternal life, because we have obeyed his laws."
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The soldiers began entertaining themselves with the third brother. When he was ordered to stick out his tongue, he quickly did so. Then he bravely held out his hands