7
Although he fell to the ground because his body could not endure the agonies, he kept his reason upright and unswerving.
8
One of the cruel guards rushed at him and began to kick him in the side to make him get up again after he fell.
9
But he bore the pains and scorned the punishment and endured the tortures.
10
Like a noble athlete the old man, while being beaten, was victorious over his torturers;
11
in fact, with his face bathed in sweat, and gasping heavily for breath, he amazed even his torturers by his courageous spirit.
12
At that point, partly out of pity for his old age,
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!