Would You Die For Your Faith?

At the risk of being accused of treason and sedition - not a novel thing in my family - I admit to having a certain admiration for the young fundamentalist Muslims, with their east London or northern accents, eschewing home comforts to go off to fight for the faith of their fathers. They face the privations of cave-dwelling, the dangers of mortal conflict, and an uncertain welcome if they survive and return to Plaistow, Luton, Crawley, Birmingham or Burnley.

I'm not sure about the other places, but Burnley is no stranger to treason and sedition. My family comes from there. Our home, Towneley Hall (now owned by the Burnley Corporation), was once a centre of that other fundamentalist religion, recusant Catholicism. After the saying of Mass became illegal in 1559, we, too, were viewed with the deepest suspicion for having allegiances that ranked above Queen, country or government.

John Towneley, my ancestor, was heavily fined by Elizabeth I's Inquisition Council, and went to prison several times. Eventually, in order that his 14 children should not have the satisfaction of claiming for their father a martyr's crown, John was released from prison, mortally sick and almost blind, to be confined instead to his Towneley estates. His friend Sir Thomas Fitzherbert, from whom I am descended on my mother's side, was also stubbornly Catholic. He died in the Tower.

Ever since I can remember, therefore, the idea of dying for your faith has been held up as a pretty splendid, if not heroic, thing to do. And Towneley heroes were not confined to the Reformation. Hearing Mass in the tiny oratory built on to the end of our drawing-room at Dyneley - the house in which the Towneley bailiff used to live and where John and his family heard Mass in secret using an altar that could be folded up to look like a wardrobe - my five sisters, my brother and I often found ourselves sitting next to a small and very ancient leather frame enclosing a piece of hair. The legend reads, 'My cousin Frank Towneley's haire, who suffered for his prince August 10th 1746'. His prince was Bonnie Prince Charlie (his brother was the prince's tutor), and Uncle Frank was eventually hanged, drawn and quartered for his part in trying to restore a Catholic monarch to Britain. For many years my family kept Uncle Frank's severed head in a basket and passed it round after dinner.

So when I hear people such as the 22-year-old accountant Mohammed Abdullah from Luton saying, 'Our religious duty comes before everything else', it has a certain resonance. Of course, Mr Abdullah's religious and social history is entirely different from mine. Since Charles Martel's victory at the Battle of Poitiers in 732 - a battle that spared my family and the rest of the people on these islands the prospect of Christian martyrdom in the 8th century - Islam and Christianity have gone their separate ways. Had that battle been lost, as Gibbon tells us, 'the Koran would now be taught in the schools of Oxford and her pulpits might demonstrate to a circumcised people the sanctity and truth of the revelation of Mohammed'.

In the event it took the crisis precipitated by Henry VIII to set the English the ultimate test. When the Christian schism came, martyrs were, of course, claimed on both sides. Many, for example the Norfolks, cannily swayed with the wind. They were well rewarded. Families such as mine, who stuck willy-nilly to their guns, were derided as misguided fundies, traitors who were quite out of step with the more doctrinally enlightened and modern times in which they were living.

My family remains in many ways defined by its history. So, when I hear adjectives that once would have applied to us being applied now to keen young Muslims, it is impossible not to feel a certain frisson.

Moreover, I have found myself wondering if I, despite the recusant blood running through my veins, would rise, like 26-year-old Abu Yahya from Plaistow, to the challenge of defending my religion if called to do so. Would you? To push this question even further, if we were invaded by an Islamic state, would you, in order to save your life and the lives of your children, bow your head and perform the Salat if told to do so? Is not the fact that Muslims find this question (with appropriate reversals) easier to answer than Christians rather shocking?

It is perfectly true that Christians are specifically forbidden to seek martyrdom, something that caused Sir Thomas More mental agonies when awaiting his inevitable execution. But there is a difference between seeking martyrdom and accepting death. The 11 September hijackers (or the ones who knew the game plan) and the Muslims who are now clamouring to suffer in the service of Allah would not qualify for martyrdom under Christian definitions. Christians believe that seeking martyrdom is a wicked thing since it denotes the sin of pride.

But it is not fear of the sin of pride that would stop the British being martyrs now; it is the sin of indifference. Moreover, I have a suspicion that, faced with the threat 'convert or die', the instincts of even Catholic and Anglican bishops would be to compromise.

Since Vatican II, Catholics could certainly do so. Indeed, some commentators, such as the French academician Jean Guitton, appear to believe that Catholicism has no specific doctrine to advance; it should merely assist in deepening individual perceptions of God. The days of exclusivity are gone. What all contemporary Christians should be working towards is a relativist interpretation of religion in which the form of your worship matters less than the depth of your spiritual experience. In times in which, according to the Vatican II Decree on Missions, Ad Gentes, 'nova exsurgit humanitatis conditio', Christians should play down uniqueness.

I think it was this new emphasis on syncretism that inspired Cardinal Lustiger, then Archbishop of Paris, to declare in 1981, 'I am a Jew. For me the two religions are one.' He was, naturally, immediately contradicted by the Chief Rabbi, but you cannot say that the cardinal was not trying. Who knows what Monsignor Georges Darboy, one of his predecessors in the archiepiscopal chair would have thought? It is little more than a century since his martyrdom in the Paris commune.

And where does this kind of thinking leave me and my fundamentalist sympathies? Out of kilter, it seems, with the Christian world. For, while I have no wish to be martyred or to engage in religious wars, it seems an enviable thing to have something beyond worldly considerations for which you would be prepared to lay down your life.

Of course, some of those young men rushing off to Afghanistan are full of nonsense. Of course, some are using Islam as a peg on which to hang rather less noble ambitions than to die for Allah's sake. But Islam has retained something that Christianity has lost: an ability to summon people to its support and not have them ask, 'What on earth for?'

Some people may feel that what I deem a loss is actually Christianity's gain; that indifference is better than fundamentalism. But, as I watch the Abduls and Aftabs go to meet their fates, I think about John Towneley and Uncle Frank. It is probably a treasonable thought, but it may be that, although I disagree with the causes that would-be Muslim martyrs are espousing, in the fibre of my being I have more in common with them than with many of my apparently more sophisticated friends and neighbours.

Another interesting thing in the catholic bible is the deletion of one of the ten commandments forbiding idol worship. Have you ever looked at a Catholic Bible? I'm looking at one right now; Exodus, Chapeter 20, verse 4, where it says, "You shall not carve idols for yourselves..." So obviously that commandment hasn't been deleted.

K..that is a bit dishonest of you....the fact is that commandment was folded into the Catholic ten commandments so it is very "hard to find"

THE RAIN / THE TEN COMMANDMENTS / NEW AMERICAN STANDARD

TEN COMMANDMENTS
New American Standard Version
Exodus 20:1-17

1. Then God spoke all these words, saying,
2. "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
3. "You shall have no other gods before Me.
4. "You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth.
5. "You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me,
6. but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.
7. "You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain.
8. "Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
9. "Six days you shall labor and do all your work,

10. but the seventh day is a sabbath of the LORD your God; {in it} you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you.
11. "For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and made it holy.
12. "Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be prolonged in the land which the LORD your God gives you.
13. "You shall not murder.
14. "You shall not commit adultery.
15. "You shall not steal.
16. "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
17. "You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor."

Which Ten Commandments?

Protestant	Catholic	Hebrew
1. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.	1. I am the Lord thy God. Thou shalt not have strange gods before me.	1. I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
2. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; And showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.	2. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.	2. Thou shalt have no other gods before Me. Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image, nor any manner of likeness, of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; Thou shalt not bow down unto them, nor serve them; for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me; And showing mercy unto the thousandth generation of them that love Me and keep My commandments.
3. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain: for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.	3. Remember thou keep the Sabbath Day.	3. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh His name in vain.
4. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.	4. Honor thy Father and thy Mother.	4. Remember the sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work. But the seventh day is the sabbath in honour of the Lord thy God; on it thou shalt not do any work, neither thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.
5. Honor thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.	5. Thou shalt not kill.	5. Honour thy father and thy mother; in order that thy days may be prolonged upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.
6. Thou shalt not kill.	6. Thou shalt not commit adultery.	6. Thou shalt not kill.
7. Thou shalt not commit adultery.	7. Thou shalt not steal.	7. Thou shalt not commit adultery.
8. Thou shalt not steal.	8. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.	8. Thou shalt not steal.
9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.	9. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife.	9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.
10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor's.	10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's goods.	10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house; thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's.
King James Bible, issued by the American Bible Society.	Catholic Catechism by Peter Cardinal Gasparri, "published with Ecclesiastical approval" and bearing the imprimatur of Patrick Cardinal Hayes, Archbishop, New York. P. J. Kenedy & Sons, 1932.	Bloch Publishing Company, New York, 1922.
It is clear that the catholic church mage a choice to downplay the adoration of graven images for a reason!

You failed to respond.

I failed to respond in a manner that would agree with your timetable. I choose not to respond until I'm ready to respond.

The following excerpt is from "Following Christ", by Stephen E. Robinson. It explains the LDS view of salvation vs. the mainstream Christian viewpoint, and in particular the LDS viewpoint on "enduring to the end" -- there is no salvation without doing that. You're free to disagree with our viewpoint all you want, but you are not free to claim that our position is not scriptural.

Faith and Works
Among other things, I hope the first three chapters of this book have established at least the following:
1. As members of the Church in good faith who have entered the gospel covenant, we are already in the kingdom of God (though only conditionally at present) for as long as we choose to remain.
2. Enduring faithfully to the end does not just mean "coping" successfully with our problems or suffering affliction with stamina, although some have been called upon to do these things in order to endure. Certainly it has little to do with overcoming personal obstacles or achieving personal goals. Rather it means staying put in the kingdom by holding on to Christ and to his church without altering our commitment-- no matter what. Neither "enduring" nor "being faithful" means being perfect or living from our baptism until our death without sinning, for God has anticipated our weaknesses and has prepared the sacrament as a means of ongoing repentance and improvement within the covenant.
3. Some of the imperfections that so bedevil us in mortality are not of our own choosing, and we will not be held accountable for them. Imperfections of this type are built-in handicaps and limitations that simply come, because of the Fall, with mortality, and when we put off mortality we shall put off these handicaps as well.
Then Why Work?

Now if all the above are true, then why should I work anymore? After all, if we are already in the kingdom, then the purpose of doing good works cannot be to get into the kingdom! The works must fit in differently somehow, for we can't be working to earn something we already possess. But if the monumental task before me as a mortal member of the Church is not to work my way into the kingdom, then what is it? If I'm already in the kingdom, why am I working so hard? In fact, why should I work at all?
Some Christians have no good answers to those questions, since they do not possess the fullness of the gospel plan. They see salvation as a single event, in fact the only really significant event there is, and for them once you reach the kingdom the ball game is over and won. But for Latter-day Saints the answer is not that simple. We see the saving work of God in its entirety, not as a single event but as a process with a beginning and an end. The beginning of the process is coming to Christ through faith, repentance, baptism, and receiving the Holy Ghost. In doing so, and at any point in the process thereafter, we are justified, sanctified, and "saved" on the condition of endurance (Matthew 10:22), that the process continue. Thus far, LDS theology is similar to that of other Christians. But Latter-day Saints know that the end of the process is far, far grander than even this. The ultimate goal, the purpose for all God's work, is not merely to save us from death and hell, as wonderful as that is in itself. The purpose behind it all is to make us what Christ is. (Is that monumental enough for you?) To be saved is to become sons and daughters of God through the atonement of Christ-- but the ultimate goal for sons and daughters is to grow up and be what their parents are. That is the dimension only Latter-day Saints understand! I'm not working now, after my conversion, to get into the kingdom; I'm not working to be "saved"; I'm working to become what he is, and to do what he does, and to have what he has.
One could say that coming to Christ is like getting on a train headed for a specific destination. If you want to go to that place, it is critically important to get on the train. And having gotten on the train, if we stay on it, we will inevitably arrive at the destination. But even so, merely getting on the train is not the point of the journey. Arriving at our destination is the point of the journey. Coming to Christ, being saved, begins our transformation. It gets us on the train, so to speak. But our ultimate object, our goal, is to become what Christ is. And that is why we work, not to save ourselves from hell-- Christ has already done that for us. In his great condescension, God the Son became everything we are and suffered everything we suffer in order to remove every obstacle and open every door (Revelation 3:8); now he invites us to become everything he is by treading the path he has cleared. So we work to close the distance, to become more like our Father (Mosiah 5:7), to actualize the individual perfection Christ has made possible. Those who do not desire to become entirely as Christ now is will find themselves increasingly uncomfortable with the process and will eventually get off the train, some nearer and some farther from their proper destination. But nobody gets thrown off. If we stay on board-- if we endure to the end-- we have God's promise that we shall reach our destination and become all that he is and receive all that he has (Romans 8:14-19, especially 17; John 16:15; Luke 12:44; D&C 84:38).
Unfortunately that is the answer other denominations cannot use, for in their theology we and Christ are usually different species of beings-- he is divine and we are human. In their view, it is blasphemous to suggest we can become what he is. They would insist there is no process, no long-term goal, and no point to religion beyond the single event of being saved from death and hell. Once saved, they are left theologically with nowhere to go, nothing to do, and no reason to do it. Their train is stationary-- no engine, no tracks, no journey. For them getting on the train is the complete destination. No wonder the one-time event of "being saved" becomes for them the focal point for all eternity and the LDS insistence on working toward a further goal irritates them so-- they deny the existence of any further goal beyond merely being saved from death and hell. They mistakenly suppose the Latter-day Saints are working to be saved, and, unfortunately, so do some of our own people. But Christ has already done that work; now we work to become as much like him as we desire to.
Only the Latter-day Saints understand that the purpose of God's grace is to take us all the way to himself and make us-- quite literally-- what he is. Now that is grace indeed! For Latter-day Saints the focal point of this life must be coming to Christ and beginning the process, but we also look forward to that greater moment in eternity when we shall finally be like him (1 John 3:2; 2 Corinthians 3:18). And toward that glorious day as faithful sons and daughters we consecrate ourselves in the everyday unfolding of our lives, that by our labors we might close the gap between us. When we use the term coming to Christ in describing conversion, it is a figure of speech that describes our intent and our desires. But the ultimate realization of coming to Christ is in actually closing the distance between us by becoming what he is through doing what he does.
If we focus too much attention on the beginning of life in Christ, on our initial conversion and justification by faith in Christ (that is, on being saved), it is possible to obscure the object, goal, and purpose of our new life, which is gradually, both now and in the eternity before us, to become in actual fact like Christ. Too much emphasis on beginning obscures the importance of finishing. As absolutely essential as it is to be converted, if we do not then begin to imitate Christ and move gradually toward him, we do not really honor him or truly worship him, for true worship is imitation.
Similarly, if we focus too much attention on the final accomplishment of our eternal goal, on becoming someday what our Father is, it is possible to undervalue or even overlook Christ's saving work, to glorify our own efforts instead and feel we are "saving ourselves" by working toward our goal. For that reason many miss the full power and blessing of having Christ in their lives right now. Thus, I suggest it is better to think of salvation as a process with a beginning in this life and an end in eternity. The beginning is mostly up to Christ; the end is mostly up to us. That is what Nephi tells us in 2 Nephi 31:19-20: We got into the strait and narrow path by unshaken faith in the word of Christ, relying wholly upon the merits of him who is mighty to save. Now we must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ and a perfect brightness of hope. If we "endure to the end" in this fashion, the Father promises, "Ye shall have eternal life." But we must always remember that while we are genuinely engaged in this process, while we labor between its beginning and its end, we are safe in his kingdom and in his loving arms-- saved in the classical sense (Alma 5:33, 34:16; Mormon 5:11, 6:17).

You missed the point.

The original post said that "the Catholic Bible" had been changed or edited. It hasn't. If you like, when I get home tonight, I can cite several Catholic versions to prove it. They read substantially the same as your NASB.

There's nothing in the Bible that says "these are the 10 commandments: 1, 2, 3 ...". The passages in Exodus and Deuteronomy from which we get the Decalogue actually contain 14 separate imperatives.

Most Protestants break them up one way. Jews break them up another. Catholics and Lutherans break them up a third way. (Or something like that).

The traditional rationale for the Catholic division is that the prohibition on false gods and the prohibition on worshipping images are really the same sin, idolatry, but the prohibition on coveting a neighbor's goods and coveting a neighbor's wife are really two different sins. The first is more closely related to stealing; the second to adultery.

Incidentally, the prohibition on graven images is not to be taken literally. God didn't take it literally, because he commanded the Jews to put carved cherubim on top of the Ark of the Covenant. The bronze sea in the Temple was held up by 12 bronze oxen, graven images all.

Jews will tell you that they have no problem with images, whether religious or not. They have a big problem with images of anything or anyone you consider to be God.

If you're not following me -- and believe me, I have researched this with Orthodox Jews, so I know what I'm talking about -- let me be blunt. If you have a picture of Jesus in your Sunday School materials, according to the Jewish understanding of the First Commandment, that's an idol. The statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary in my parish church isn't. In other words, if you want to hold Catholics to the Jewish understanding of the First Commandment, you're just as guilty as we are. Your only alternative is to admit that the First Commandment must be understood differently in the light of the Christian revelation.

And if you're prepared to admit that, we can talk.

Just this past week, the reading at church was exactly apropos this point:

2 Maccabees, Chapter 7.

It happened that seven brothers with their mother were arrested and tortured with whips and scourges by the king, to force them to eat pork in violation of God's law. 2 One of the brothers, speaking for the others, said: "What do you expect to achieve by questioning us? We are ready to die rather than transgress the laws of our ancestors."

3 At that the king, in a fury, gave orders to have pans and caldrons heated. 4 While they were being quickly heated, he commanded his executioners to cut out the tongue of the one who had spoken for the others, to scalp him and cut off his hands and feet, while the rest of his brothers and his mother looked on. 5 When he was completely maimed but still breathing, the king ordered them to carry him to the fire and fry him. As a cloud of smoke spread from the pan, the brothers and their mother encouraged one another to die bravely, saying such words as these: 6 "The Lord God is looking on, and he truly has compassion on us, as Moses declared in his canticle, when he protested openly with the words, 'And he will have pity on his servants.'"

7 When the first brother had died in this manner, they brought the second to be made sport of. After tearing off the skin and hair of his head, they asked him, "Will you eat the pork rather than have your body tortured limb by limb?" 8 Answering in the language of his forefathers, he said, "Never!" So he too in turn suffered the same tortures as the first. 9 At the point of death he said: "You accursed fiend, you are depriving us of this present life, but the King of the world will raise us up to live again forever. It is for his laws that we are dying."

10 After him the third suffered their cruel sport. He put out his tongue at once when told to do so, and bravely held out his hands, 11 as he spoke these noble words: "It was from Heaven that I received these; for the sake of his laws I disdain them; from him I hope to receive them again." 12 Even the king and his attendants marveled at the young man's courage, because he regarded his sufferings as nothing.

13 After he had died, they tortured and maltreated the fourth brother in the same way. 14 When he was near death, he said, "It is my choice to die at the hands of men with the God-given hope of being restored to life by him; but for you, there will be no resurrection to life."

15 They next brought forward the fifth brother and maltreated him. Looking at the king, 16 he said: "Since you have power among men, mortal though you are, do what you please. But do not think that our nation is forsaken by God. 17 Only wait, and you will see how his great power will torment you and your descendants."

18 After him they brought the sixth brother. When he was about to die, he said: "Have no vain illusions. We suffer these things on our own account, because we have sinned against our God; that is why such astonishing things have happened to us. 19 Do not think, then, that you will go unpunished for having dared to fight against God."

20 Most admirable and worthy of everlasting remembrance was the mother, who saw her seven sons perish in a single day, yet bore it courageously because of her hope in the Lord. 21 Filled with a noble spirit that stirred her womanly heart with manly courage, she exhorted each of them in the language of their forefathers with these words: 22 "I do not know how you came into existence in my womb; it was not I who gave you the breath of life, nor was it I who set in order the elements of which each of you is composed. 23 Therefore, since it is the Creator of the universe who shapes each man's beginning, as he brings about the origin of everything, he, in his mercy, will give you back both breath and life, because you now disregard yourselves for the sake of his law."

24 Antiochus, suspecting insult in her words, thought he was being ridiculed. As the youngest brother was still alive, the king appealed to him, not with mere words, but with promises on oath, to make him rich and happy if he would abandon his ancestral customs: he would make him his Friend and entrust him with high office. 25 When the youth paid no attention to him at all, the king appealed to the mother, urging her to advise her boy to save his life. 26 After he had urged her for a long time, she went through the motions of persuading her son. 27 In derision of the cruel tyrant, she leaned over close to her son and said in their native language: "Son, have pity on me, who carried you in my womb for nine months, nursed you for three years, brought you up, educated and supported you to your present age. 28 I beg you, child, to look at the heavens and the earth and see all that is in them; then you will know that God did not make them out of existing things; and in the same way the human race came into existence. 29 Do not be afraid of this executioner, but be worthy of your brothers and accept death, so that in the time of mercy I may receive you again with them."

30 She had scarcely finished speaking when the youth said: "What are you waiting for? I will not obey the king's command. I obey the command of the law given to our forefathers through Moses. 31 But you, who have contrived every kind of affliction for the Hebrews, will not escape the hands of God. 32 We, indeed, are suffering because of our sins. 33 Though our living Lord treats us harshly for a little while to correct us with chastisements, he will again be reconciled with his servants. 34 But you, wretch, vilest of all men! do not, in your insolence, concern yourself with unfounded hopes, as you raise your hand against the children of Heaven. 35 You have not yet escaped the judgment of the almighty and all-seeing God. 36 My brothers, after enduring brief pain, have drunk of never-failing life, under God's covenant, but you, by the judgment of God, shall receive just punishments for your arrogance. 37 Like my brothers, I offer up my body and my life for our ancestral laws, imploring God to show mercy soon to our nation, and by afflictions and blows to make you confess that he alone is God. 38 Through me and my brothers, may there be an end to the wrath of the Almighty that has justly fallen on our whole nation."

39 At that, the king became enraged and treated him even worse than the others, since he bitterly resented the boy's contempt. 40 Thus he too died undefiled, putting all his trust in the Lord.

41 The mother was last to die, after her sons.

42 Enough has been said about the sacrificial meals and the excessive cruelties.

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