13
partly 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?
15
We 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!