4
Be of good cheer, therefore, O holy-minded mother! holding the firm hope of your steadfastness with God.
5
Not so gracious does the moon appear with the stars in heaven, as thou art established honourable before God, and fixed in the firmament with thy sons who thou didst illuminate with religion to the stars.
6
For thy bearing of children was after the fashion of a child of Abraham.
7
And, were it lawful for us to paint as on a tablet the religion of thy story, the spectators would not shudder at beholding the mother of seven children enduring for the sake of religion various tortures even unto death.
8
And it had been a worth thing to have inscribed upon the tomb itself these words as a memorial to those of the nation,
9
Here an aged priest, and an aged woman, and seven sons, are buried through the violence of a tyrant, who wished to destroy the polity of the Hebrews.
10
These also avenged their nation, looking unto God, and enduring torments unto death.
11
For it was truly a divine contest which was carried through by them.
12
For at that time virtue presided over the contest, approving the victory through endurance, namely, immortality, eternal life.
13
Eleazar was the first to contend: and the mother of the seven children entered the contest; and the brethren contended.
14
The tyrant was the opposite; and the world and living men were the spectators.