2714 verses about Death

and he began to pull down. At that time was Alcimus stricken, and his works were hindered; and his mouth was stopped, and he was taken with a palsy, and he could no more speak anything and give order concerning his house.

And Alcimus died at that time with great torment.

And Bacchides saw that Alcimus was dead, and he returned to the king: and the land of Judah had rest two years.

And he strengthened the battle exceedingly until the sun went down: and Demetrius fell that day.

And those who had fallen by the sword, with those who were burned, were about eight thousand men.

But when he came near to Azotus, they showed him the temple of Dagon burned with fire, and Azotus and the suburbs thereof pulled down, and the bodies cast abroad, and those who had been burned, whom he burned in the war, for they had made heaps of them in his way.

And Zabdiel the Arabian took off Alexander’s head, and sent it to Ptolemy.

And king Ptolemy died the third day after, and those who were in his strongholds were slain by those who were in the strongholds.

And the king called the Jews to help him, and they were gathered together to him all at once, and they dispersed themselves in the city, and killed that day to the number of a hundred thousand.

Now as soon as Jonathan entered into Ptolemais, they of Ptolemais shut the gates, and laid hands on him; and all those who came in with him they killed with the sword.

And they perceived that he was taken and had perished, and those who were with him; and they encouraged one another, and went on their way close together, prepared to fight.

And they all came in peace into the land of Judah, and they mourned for Jonathan, and those who were with him, and they were sore afraid; and all Israel mourned with a great mourning.

by reason hereof all my kindred have perished for Israel’s sake, and I am left alone.

And now be it far from me, that I should spare my own life in any time of affliction; for I am not better than my kindred.

and they should say, Because I sent him not the money and the children, he perished.

But when he came near to Bascama, he killed Jonathan, and he was buried there.

And Simon sent, and took the bones of Jonathan his brother, and buried him at Modin, the city of his fathers.

And all Israel made great lamentation over him, and mourned for him many days.

And Simon built a monument upon the sepulchre of his father and his kindred, and raised it aloft to the sight, with polished stone behind and before.

And he set up seven pyramids, one near another, for his father, and his mother, and his four kindred.

This is the sepulchre which he made at Modin, and it is there to this day.

But they of the citadel in Jerusalem were hindered from going forth, and from going into the country, and from buying and selling; and they hungered exceedingly, and a great number of them perished through famine.

And it was heard at Rome that Jonathan was dead, and even to Sparta, and they were exceeding sorry.

and Jonathan assembled their nation together, and became their high priest, and was gathered to his people:

And they sounded with the trumpets; and Cendebaeus and his army were put to the rout, and there fell of them many wounded to death, but those who were left fled to the stronghold:

And when Simon and his sons had drunk freely, Ptolemy and his men rose up, and took their arms, and came in upon Simon into the banqueting place, and killed him, and his two sons, and certain of his servants.

And one ran before to Gazara, and told John that his father and kindred were perished, and he has sent to kill you also.

and opening the secret door of the panelled cieling, they threw stones and struck down the prince, and they hewed him and his company in pieces, and struck off their heads, and cast them to those that were without.

But when the growing enmity between them waxed so great, that even murders were perpetrated through one of Simon’s trusted followers,

And when the king was come back again from the places in Cilicia, the Jews that were in the city pleaded before him against Andronicus (the Greeks also joining with them in hatred of the wickedness), urging that Onias had been wrongfully slain.

Antiochus therefore was heartily sorry, and was moved to pity, and wept, because of the sober and well ordered life of him that was dead;

and being inflamed with passion, forthwith he stripped off Andronicus’s purple robe, and tore off his under garments, and when he had led him round through the whole city to that very place where he had committed impiety against Onias, there he put the murderer out of the way, the Lord rendering to him the punishment he had deserved.

For which cause even certain Tyrians, moved with hatred of the wickedness, provided magnificently for their burial.

At the last therefore he met with a miserable end: having been shut up at the court of Aretas the prince of the Arabians, fleeing from city to city, pursued of all men, hated as an apostate from the laws, and held in abomination as the butcher of his country and his fellow-citizens, he was cast forth into Egypt;

and he that had driven many from their own country into strange lands perished himself in a strange land, having crossed the sea to the Lacedaemonians, as thinking to find shelter there because they were near of kin;

and he that had cast out a multitude unburied had none to mourn for him, nor had he any funeral at all, or place in the sepulchre of his fathers.

and commanded his soldiers to cut down without mercy such as came in their way, and to kill such as went up upon the houses;

and there was killing of young and old, making away of boys, women, and children, slaying of virgins and infants.

And in all the three days of the slaughter there were destroyed fourscore thousand, whereof forty thousand were slain in close combat, and no fewer were sold than slain.

he sent that lord of pollutions Apollonius with an army of two and twenty thousand, commanding him to kill all those that were of full age, and to sell the women and the younger men.

And he put to the sword all those who came forth to the spectacle; and running into the city with the armed men he killed great multitudes.

for two women were brought up for having circumcised their children; and these, when they had led them publicly round about the city, with the babes hung from their breasts, they cast down headlong from the wall.

And others, that had run together into the caves near by to keep the seventh day secretly, being betrayed to Philip were all burned together, because they scrupled to defend themselves, from regard to the honor of that most solemn day.

But he, welcoming death with renown rather than life with pollution, advanced of his own accord to the instrument of torture, but first spat forth the flesh,

coming forward as men ought to come that are resolute to repel such things as not even for the natural love of life is it lawful to taste.

that by so doing he might be delivered from death, and for his ancient friendship with them might be treated kindly.

But he, having formed a high resolve, and one that became his years, and the dignity of old age, and the gray hairs which he had reached with honor, and his excellent education from a child, or rather that became the holy laws of God’s ordaining, declared his mind accordingly, bidding them quickly send him to Hades.

For it becomes not our years to dissemble, said he, that through this many of the young should suppose that Eleazar, the man of fourscore years and ten, had gone over to an alien religion;

and so they, by reason of my dissimulation, and for the sake of this brief and momentary life, should be led astray because of me, and thus I get to myself a pollution and a stain of my old age.

For even if for the present time I shall remove from me the punishment of men, yet shall I not escape the hands of the Almighty, either living or dead.

Wherefore, by manfully parting with my life now, I will show myself worthy of my old age,

and leave behind a noble ensample to the young to die willingly and nobly a glorious death for the reverend and holy laws. And when he had said these words, he went straightway to the instrument of torture.

and when he was at the point to die with the stripes, he groaned aloud and said, To the Lord, that has the holy knowledge, it is manifest that, whereas I might have been delivered from death, I endure sore pains in my body by being scourged; but in soul I gladly suffer these things for my fear of him.

So this man also died after this manner, leaving his death for an ensample of nobleness and a memorial of virtue, not only to the young but also to the great body of his nation.

But one of them made himself the spokesman and said, What would you ask and learn of us? for we are ready to die rather than transgress the laws of our fathers.

and when these forthwith were heated, he commanded to cut out the tongue of him that had been their spokesman, and to scalp him, and to cut off his extremities, the rest of his kindred and his mother looking on.

And when he was utterly maimed, the king commanded to bring him to the fire, being yet alive, and to fry him in the pan. And as the vapor of the pan spread far, they and their mother also exhorted one another to die nobly, saying thus:

And when the first had died after this manner, they brought the second to the mocking; and they pulled off the skin of his head with the hair and asked him, Wilt you eat, before your body be punished in every limb?

And when he was at the last gasp, he said, You, miscreant, do release us out of this present life, but the King of the world shall raise up us, who have died for his laws, to an eternal renewal of life.

And after him was the third made a mocking-stock. And when he was required, he quickly put out his tongue, and stretched forth his hands courageously,

And when he too was dead, they shamefully handled and tortured the fourth in like manner.

And being come near to death he said thus: It is good to die at the hands of men and look for the hopes which are given by God, that we shall be raised up again by him; for as for you, you shall have no resurrection to life.

And next after him they brought the fifth, and shamefully handled him.

but hold you on your way, and behold his sovereign majesty, how it will torture you and your seed.

And after him they brought the sixth. And when he was at the point to die he said, Be not vainly deceived, for we suffer these things for our own doings, as sinning against our own God: marvelous things are come to pass;

But above all was the mother marvelous and worthy of honorable memory; for when she looked on seven sons perishing within the space of one day, she bare the sight with a good courage for the hopes that she had set on the Lord.

But when the young man would in no wise give heed, the king called to him his mother, and exhorted her that she would counsel the lad to save himself.

But bending toward him, laughing the cruel tyrant to scorn, she spoke thus in the language of her fathers: My son, have pity upon me that carried you nine months in my womb, and gave you suck three years, and nourished and brought you up to this age, and sustained you.

Don’t be afraid of this butcher, but, proving yourself worthy of your kindred, accept your death, that in the mercy of God I may receive you again with your kindred.

For these our kindred, having endured a short pain that brings everlasting life, have now died under God’s covenant; But you, through the judgement of God, shall receive in just measure the penalties of your arrogancy.

But I, as my kindred, give up both body and soul for the laws of our fathers, calling upon God that he may speedily become gracious to the nation; and that you amidst trials and plagues may confess that he alone is God;

So he also died pure from pollution, putting his whole trust in the Lord.

And last of all after her sons the mother died.

And when he had with these words made them of good courage, and ready to die for the laws and their country, he divided his army into four parts;

And being lifted up by his passion he thought to make the Jews suffer even for the evil-doing of those that had put him to rout. Wherefore, the judgement from heaven even now accompanying him, he gave order to his charioteer to drive without ceasing and despatch the journey; for thus he arrogantly spoke: I will make Jerusalem a common graveyard of Jews, when I come there.

But the All-seeing Lord, the God of Israel, struck him with a fatal and invisible stroke; and as soon as he had ceased speaking this word, an incurable pain of the bowels seized him, and bitter torments of the inner parts;

so that out of the body of the impious man worms swarmed, and while he was still living in anguish and pains, his flesh fell off, and by reason of the stench all the army turned with loathing from his corruption.

And the man that a little before supposed himself to touch the stars of heaven, no one could endure to carry for his intolerable stench.

And when he himself could not abide his own smell, he said these words: It is right to be subject to God, and that one who is mortal should not be minded arrogantly.

that the holy city, to the which he was going in haste, to lay it even with the ground and to make it a common graveyard, he would declare free;

and as touching the Jews, whom he had decided not even to count worthy of burial, but to cast them out to the beasts with their infants, for the birds to devour, he would make them all equal to citizens of Athens;

So the murderer and blasphemer, having endured the sorest sufferings, even as he had dealt with other men, ended his life among the mountains by a most piteous fate in a strange land.

And Philip his foster-brother conveyed the body home; and then, fearing the son of Antiochus, he betook himself to Ptolemy Philometor in Egypt.

And such was the end of Antiochus, who was called Epiphanes.

Whereupon being accused by the king’s Friends before Eupator, and hearing himself called traitor at every turn, because he had abandoned Cyprus which Philometor had intrusted to him, and had withdrawn himself to Antiochus called Epiphanes, and failing to uphold the honor of his office, he took poison and made away with himself.

and assaulting them vigorously they made themselves masters of the positions, and kept off all that fought upon the wall, and killed those that fell in their way, and killed no fewer than twenty thousand.

And there were slain twenty thousand and five hundred, beside six hundred horsemen.

And they killed Timotheus, who was hidden in a cistern, and his brother Chaereas, and Apollophanes.

and when the Jews, relying on the common decree of the city, accepted the invitation, as men desiring to live in peace and suspecting nothing, they took them out to sea and drowned them, in number not less than two hundred.

and having taken the city by the will of God, they made unspeakable slaughter, insomuch that the adjoining lake, which was two furlongs broad, appeared to be filled with the deluge of blood.

And when they had set themselves in array, it came to pass that a few of the Jews fell.

And on the day following, at which time it had become necessary, Judas and his company came to take up the bodies of those who had fallen, and in company with their kinsmen to bring them back to the sepulchres of their fathers.

But under the garments of each one of the dead they found consecrated tokens of the idols of Jamnia, which the law forbids the Jews to have anything to do with; and it became clear to all that it was for this cause that they had fallen.

For if he were not expecting that those who had fallen would rise again, it were superfluous and idle to pray for the dead.

(And if he did it looking to an honorable memorial of gratitude laid up for those who die in godliness, holy and godly was the thought.) Wherefore he made the atoning sacrifice for those who had died, that they might be released from their sin.

But the King of kings stirred up the passion of Antiochus against the wicked wretch; and when Lysias informed him that this man was the cause of all the evils, the king commanded to bring him to Beroea, and to put him to death after the manner of that place.

By such a fate it befell the breaker of the law, Menelaus, to die, without obtaining so much as a grave in the earth, and that right justly;

for inasmuch as he had perpetrated many sins against the altar, whose fire and whose ashes were holy, in ashes did he receive his death.

And committing the decision to the Lord of the world, and exhorting those who were with him to contend nobly even to death for laws, temple, city, country, commonwealth, he pitched his camp by Modin.

But when the troops were on the point of taking the tower, and were forcing the door of the court, and bade bring fire and burn the doors, he being surrounded on every side fell upon his sword,