Helpful Saints Corpus Reader
4 Maccabees
4 Maccabees — Brenton historical English
Unverified edition · Chapter 11
Reading language: eng · Original language (catalog): Ancient source language(s)
Reading display
Display preferences stay on this browser when storage is available.
Resume in the Library keeps only your last public work, edition and passage on this browser.
Saved Places
Saved only on this browser. Places do not synchronize between devices. Only work, edition and passage identifiers are kept; passage text is not stored.
Remove all Saved Places from this browser? Resume reading and display preferences will stay.
Chapter 11 · All reading sections
Choose an edition
4 Maccabees 11:1
And when he had died, disfigured in his torments, the fifth leaped forward, and said,
Study this passage
4 Maccabees 11:2
I intend not, O tyrant, to get excused from the torment which is in behalf of virtue.
Study this passage
4 Maccabees 11:3
But I have come of my own accord, that by the death of me, you may owe heavenly vengeance a punishment for more crimes.
Study this passage
4 Maccabees 11:4
O thou hater of virtue and of men, what have we done that thou thus revellest in our blood?
Study this passage
4 Maccabees 11:5
Does it seem evil to thee that we worship the Founder of all things, and live according to his surpassing law?
Study this passage
4 Maccabees 11:6
But this is worthy of honours, not of torments;
Study this passage
4 Maccabees 11:7
hadst thou been capable of the higher feelings of men, and possessed the hope of salvation from God.
Study this passage
4 Maccabees 11:8
Behold, now, being alien from God, thou makest war against those who are religious toward God.
Study this passage
4 Maccabees 11:9
As he said this, the spearbearers bound him, and drew him to the catapelt:
Study this passage
4 Maccabees 11:10
to which binding him at his knees, and fastening them with iron fetters, they bent down his loins upon the wedge of the wheel; and his body was then dismembered, scorpion-fashion.
Study this passage
4 Maccabees 11:11
With his breath thus confined, and his body strangled, he said,
Study this passage
4 Maccabees 11:12
A great favour thou bestowest upon us, O tyrant, by enabling us to manifest our adherence to the law by means of nobler sufferings.
Study this passage
4 Maccabees 11:13
He also being dead, the sixth, quite a youth, was brought out; and on the tyrant asking him whether he would eat and be delivered, he said,
Study this passage
4 Maccabees 11:14
I am indeed younger than my brothers, but in understanding I am as old;
Study this passage
4 Maccabees 11:15
for having been born and reared unto the same end, we are bound to die also in behalf of the same cause.
Study this passage
4 Maccabees 11:16
So that if thou think proper to torment us for not eating the unclean;—torment!
Study this passage
4 Maccabees 11:17
As he said this, they brought him to the wheel.
Study this passage
4 Maccabees 11:18
Extended upon which, with limbs racked and dislocated, he was gradually roasted from beneath.
Study this passage
4 Maccabees 11:19
And having heated sharp spits, they approached them to his back; and having transfixed his sides, they burned away his entrails.
Study this passage
4 Maccabees 11:20
And he, while tormented, said, O period good and holy, in which, for the sake of religion, we brothers have been called to the contest of pain, and have not been conquered.
Study this passage
4 Maccabees 11:21
For religious understanding, O tyrant, is unconquered.
Study this passage
4 Maccabees 11:22
Armed with upright virtue, I also shall depart with my brethren.
Study this passage
4 Maccabees 11:23
I, too, bearing with me a great avenger, O deviser of tortures, and enemy of the truly pious.
Study this passage
4 Maccabees 11:24
We six youths have destroyed thy tyranny.
Study this passage
4 Maccabees 11:25
For is not your inability to overrule our reasoning, and to compel us to eat the unclean, thy destruction?
Study this passage
4 Maccabees 11:26
Your fire is cold to us, your catapelts are painless, and your violence harmless.
Study this passage
4 Maccabees 11:27
For the guards not of a tyrant but of a divine law are our defenders: through this we keep our reasoning unconquered.
Study this passage
Compare this section in another edition
Read the editions separately. Matching section labels do not establish word or phrase alignment.
Only publicly readable editions are offered. An original-language parallel requires an admitted source edition; a retained private witness is not displayed here.
About this edition
Recorded completeness: All 18 chapter files and 483 supplied numbered verses of this identified English witness; all supplied footnotes retained. No claim that this translation is an original-language source or HSLT. This independent historical edition retains its own source readings.. Available reading sections are listed below.
Available body coverage · eng
18 chapter/reading unit(s) · 483 nonempty passage record(s).
Supported chapters & passages
- Chapter 1 · 35 passage record(s)
- Chapter 2 · 24 passage record(s)
- Chapter 3 · 21 passage record(s)
- Chapter 4 · 26 passage record(s)
- Chapter 5 · 38 passage record(s)
- Chapter 6 · 35 passage record(s)
- Chapter 7 · 25 passage record(s)
- Chapter 8 · 27 passage record(s)
- Chapter 9 · 32 passage record(s)
- Chapter 10 · 21 passage record(s)
- Chapter 11 · 27 passage record(s)
- Chapter 12 · 20 passage record(s)
- Chapter 13 · 27 passage record(s)
- Chapter 14 · 20 passage record(s)
- Chapter 15 · 32 passage record(s)
- Chapter 16 · 25 passage record(s)
- Chapter 17 · 24 passage record(s)
- Chapter 18 · 24 passage record(s)
Body coverage is separate from textual verification. Counts do not establish complete chapters or textual completeness.
Evidence Intelligence
Know what kind of evidence you are looking at.
Helpful Saints keeps direct biblical text, language evidence, ancient witnesses, historical context, research models, and open questions visibly distinct.Direct Biblical Text
The explicit wording and literary context of canonical Scripture.
Original-Language Evidence
Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, morphology, lemmas, semantic range, and textual comparison.
Ancient Witness
Septuagint, Dead Sea Scrolls, ancient Jewish literature, and early Christian writings—clearly classified.
Historical Context
Geography, material culture, chronology ranges, institutions, customs, and reception history.
Research Model
A configured chronology, theological synthesis, typological pattern, or proposed relationship.
Open Question
Evidence is incomplete, debated, or insufficient for a settled conclusion.