9
and whoso would not conform themselves to the manners of the Gentiles should be put to death. Then might a man have seen the present misery.
10
For there were two women brought who had circumcised their children; and when they had been openly led round about the city with the babes hanging at their breasts, they cast them down headlong from the wall.
11
And others who had run together into caves near by to keep the Sabbath day secretly, being discovered by Philip, were all burned together, because they had a conscience against helping themselves because of the honor of the most sacred day.
12
Now I beseech those who read this book that they be not discouraged by these calamities, but that they judge those punishments not to be for destruction, but as a chastening of our nation.
13
For it is a token of His great goodness when wicked doers are not suffered any long time, but forthwith punished.
14
For as with other nations, whom the Lord patiently forbeareth to punish till they have come to the fullness of their sins, so He dealeth not with us,
15
lest that, having come to the height of sin, afterwards He should take vengeance on us.
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And therefore He never withdraweth His mercy from us; and though He punish with adversity, yet doth He never forsake His people.
17
But let this that we have spoken be as a warning unto us. And now will we come to the declaring of the matter in a few words.
18
Eleazar, one of the principal scribes, an aged man and of a well-favored countenance, was constrained to open his mouth and to eat swine's flesh.
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But he, choosing rather to die gloriously than to live stained with such an abomination, spat it forth and came of his own accord to the torment,