Scrutatio

Giovedi, 28 marzo 2024 - San Castore di Tarso ( Letture di oggi)

2 Maccabees 7


font

1It also happened that seven brothers were arrested with their mother. The king tried to force them totaste some pork, which the Law forbids, by torturing them with whips and scourges.2One of them, acting as spokesman for the others, said, 'What are you trying to find out from us? Weare prepared to die rather than break the laws of our ancestors.'3The king, in a fury, ordered pans and cauldrons to be heated over a fire.4As soon as these were red-hot, he commanded that their spokesman should have his tongue cut out,his head scalped and his extremities cut off, while the other brothers and his mother looked on.5When he had been rendered completely helpless, the king gave orders for him to be brought, stilbreathing, to the fire and fried alive in a pan. As the smoke from the pan drifted about, his mother and the restencouraged one another to die nobly, with such words as these,6'The Lord God is watching and certainly feels sorry for us, as Moses declared in his song, which clearlystates that "he wil take pity on his servants." '7When the first had left the world in this way, they brought the second forward to be tortured. Afterstripping the skin from his head, hair and al , they asked him, 'Wil you eat some pork, before your body istortured limb by limb?'8Replying in his ancestral tongue, he said, 'No!' So he too was put to the torture in his turn.9With his last breath he exclaimed, 'Cruel brute, you may discharge us from this present life, but theKing of the world wil raise us up, since we die for his laws, to live again for ever.'10After him, they tortured the third, who on being asked for his tongue promptly thrust it out and boldlyheld out his hands,11courageously saying, 'Heaven gave me these limbs; for the sake of his laws I have no concern forthem; from him I hope to receive them again.'12The king and his attendants were astounded at the young man's courage and his utter indifference tosuffering.13When this one was dead they subjected the fourth to the same torments and tortures.14When he neared his end he cried, 'Ours is the better choice, to meet death at men's hands, yet relyingon God's promise that we shal be raised up by him; whereas for you there can be no resurrection to new life.'15Next they brought forward the fifth and began torturing him.16But he looked at the king and said, 'You have power over human beings, mortal as you are, and canact as you please. But do not think that our race has been deserted by God.17Only wait, and you wil see in your turn how his mighty power wil torment you and your descendants.'18After him, they led out the sixth, and his dying words were these, 'Do not delude yourself: we aresuffering like this through our own fault, having sinned against our own God; hence, appal ing things havebefal en us-19but do not think you yourself wil go unpunished for attempting to make war on God.'20But the mother was especial y admirable and worthy of honourable remembrance, for she watchedthe death of seven sons in the course of a single day, and bravely endured it because of her hopes in the Lord.21Indeed she encouraged each of them in their ancestral tongue; fil ed with noble conviction, shereinforced her womanly argument with manly courage, saying to them,22'I do not know how you appeared in my womb; it was not I who endowed you with breath and life, Ihad not the shaping of your every part.23And hence, the Creator of the world, who made everyone and ordained the origin of al things, wil inhis mercy give you back breath and life, since for the sake of his laws you have no concern for yourselves.'24Antiochus thought he was being ridiculed, suspecting insult in the tone of her voice; and as theyoungest was still alive he appealed to him not with mere words but with promises on oath to make him both richand happy if he would abandon the traditions of his ancestors; he would make him his Friend and entrust himwith public office.25The young man took no notice at al , and so the king then appealed to the mother, urging her toadvise the youth to save his life.26After a great deal of urging on his part she agreed to try persuasion on her son.27Bending over him, she fooled the cruel tyrant with these words, uttered in their ancestral tongue, 'Myson, have pity on me; I carried you nine months in my womb and suckled you three years, fed you and rearedyou to the age you are now, and provided for you.28I implore you, my child, look at the earth and sky and everything in them, and consider how God madethem out of what did not exist, and that human beings come into being in the same way.29Do not fear this executioner, but prove yourself worthy of your brothers and accept death, so that Imay receive you back with them in the day of mercy.'30She had hardly finished, when the young man said, 'What are you all waiting for? I wil not complywith the king's ordinance; I obey the ordinance of the Law given to our ancestors through Moses.31As for you, who have contrived every kind of evil against the Hebrews, you wil certainly not escapethe hands of God.32We are suffering for our own sins;33and if, to punish and discipline us, our living Lord is briefly angry with us, he wil be reconciled with usin due course.34But you, unholy wretch and wickedest of vil ains, what cause have you for pride, nourishing vainhopes and raising your hand against his servants? -35for you have not yet escaped the judgement of God the almighty, the al -seeing.36Our brothers, having endured brief pain, for the sake of ever-flowing life have died for the covenant ofGod, while you, by God's judgement, wil have to pay the just penalty for your arrogance.37I too, like my brothers, surrender my body and life for the laws of my ancestors, begging God quicklyto take pity on our nation, and by trials and afflictions to bring you to confess that he alone is God,38so that with my brothers and myself there may be an end to the wrath of the Almighty, rightly let looseon our whole nation.'39The king fel into a rage and treated this one more cruel y than the others, for he was himself smartingfrom the young man's scorn.40And so the last brother met his end undefiled and with perfect trust in the Lord.41The mother was the last to die, after her sons.42But let this be sufficient account of the ritual meals and monstrous tortures.