2714 verses about Death

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,

choosing rather to die nobly than to fall into the hands of the wicked wretches, and suffer outrage unworthy of his own nobleness:

but since he missed his stroke through the excitement of the struggle, and the crowds were now rushing within the door, he ran bravely up to the wall and cast himself down manfully among the crowds.

But as they quickly gave back, a space was made, and he fell on the middle of his side.

And having yet breath within him, and being inflamed with passion, he rose up, and though his blood gushed out in streams and his wounds were grievous, he ran through the crowds, and standing upon a steep rock,

when as his blood was now well near spent, he drew forth his bowels through the wound, and taking them in both his hands he shook them at the crowds; and calling upon him who is Lord of the life and the spirit to restore him these again, he thus died.

And when the engagement was over, and they were returning again with joy, they recognized Nicanor lying dead in full armor;

and cutting out the tongue of the impious Nicanor, he said that he would give it by pieces to the birds, and hang up the rewards of his madness near the sanctuary.

And he hanged Nicanor’s head and shoulder from the citadel, a sign, evident to all and manifest, of the help of the Lord.

Then said the king to his servants, Carry me away out of the battle; for I am very weak. And immediately his servants carried him away out of the army.

Then got he up upon his second chariot; and being brought back to Jerusalem he died, and was buried in the sepulchre of his fathers.

And in all Jewry they mourned for Josias; and Jeremy the prophet lamented for Josias, and the chief men with the women made lamentation for him, to this day: and this was given out for an ordinance to be done continually in all the nation of Israel.

who killed their young men with the sword, round about their holy temple, and spared neither young man nor maid, old man nor child; but he delivered all into their hands.

And with his wife he ends his days, and remembers neither father, nor mother, nor country.

Calling out to arms, and to die bravely in defence of the law of their fathers, they created a great uproar in the place, and were with difficulty brought back by the aged and the elders to the station of prayer which they had occupied before.

As soon, therefore, as the contents of this letter become known to you, in that same hour we order those Jews who dwell among you, with wives and children, to be sent to us, vilified and abused, in chains of iron, to undergo a death, cruel and ignominious, suitable to men disaffected.

Whosoever shall shield a Jew, whether it be old man, child, or suckling, shall with his whole house be tortured to death.

The Jews suffered great throes of sorrow, and wept much; while their hearts, all things around being lamentable, were set on fire as they bewailed the sudden destruction which was decreed against them.

What home, or city, or place at all inhabited, or what streets were there, which their condition did not fill with wailing and lamentation?

The husbands of these, in the prime of their youthful vigour, instead of crowns wore halters round their necks; instead of feasting and youthful jollity, spent the rest of their nuptial days in wailings, and saw only the grave at hand.

he commanded him, with a quantity of unmixed wine and handfuls of incense infused to drug the elephants early on the following day. These five hundred elephants were, when infuriated by the copious draughts of frankincense, to be led up to the execution of death upon the Jews.

to overthrow the evil purpose which was gone out against them, and to deliver them by extraordinary manifestation from that death which was in store for them.

The king, just like another Phalaris, a prey to thoughtlessness, made no account of the changes which his own mind had undergone, issuing in the deliverance of the Jews. He swore a fruitless oath, and determined forthwith to send them to hades, crushed by the knees and feet of the elephants.

thought that they had come to the last moment of their lives, to the end of what they had tremblingly expected. They gave way, therefore, to lamentations and moans: they kissed each other: those nearest of kin to each other hung about one another’s necks: fathers about their sons, mother their daughters: other women held their infants to their breasts, which drew what seemed their last milk.

If our life has during our exile been stained with iniquity, deliver us from the hand of the enemy, and destroy us, O Lord, by the death which you prefer.

These things he said; and they, released the same moment, having now escaped death, praised God their holy Saviour.

Then they who were before despised and near to hades, yes, rather advanced into it, partook of the cup of salvation, instead of a grievous and lamentable death. Full of exultation, they parted out the place intended for their fall and burial into banqueting booths.

Those who had marked them out as for death and for carrion, and had registered them with joy, howled aloud, and were clothed with shame, and had the fire of their rage ingloriously put out.

slaying thus, in that day, above three hundred men, and esteeming this destruction of the wicked a season of joy.

They themselves having held fast their God to death, and having enjoyed a full deliverance, departed from the city garlanded with sweet-flowered wreaths of every kind. Uttering exclamations of joy, with songs of praise, and melodious hymns they thanked the God of their fathers, the eternal Saviour of Israel.

saying, Why have you brought us into this wilderness to kill us? it had been better for us to have served the Egyptians, than to die in this wilderness.

And those that be dead will I raise up again from their places, and bring them out from their tombs: for I have known my name in them.

Wherever you find the dead, set a sign upon them and commit them to the grave, and I will give you the first place in my resurrection.

Remember your children that sleep, for I shall bring them out of the secret places of the earth, and show mercy to them: for I am merciful, says the Lord Almighty.

He answered and said to me, These be those who have put off the mortal clothing, and put on the immortal, and have confessed the name of God: now are they crowned, and receive palms.

And to him you gave your one commandment: which he transgressed, and immediately you appointed death for him and in his generations; and there were born of him nations and tribes, peoples and kindred, out of number.

Nevertheless again in process of time you brought the flood upon those that lived in the world, and destroyed them.

And it came to pass that the same hap befell them; like as death was to Adam, so was the flood to these.

For the first Adam bearing a wicked heart transgressed, and was overcome; and not he only, but all they also that are born of him.

and we pass away out of the world as grasshoppers, and our life is as a vapor, neither are we worthy to obtain mercy.

Then said I, no, Lord, that can it not. And he said to me, in the grave the chambers of souls are like the womb:

And he said to me, You can not. And I said, Wherefore, Lord, or whereunto was I born? or why was not my mother’s womb then my grave, that I might not have seen the travail of Jacob, and the wearisome toil of the stock of Israel?

The beginning of a man is his hand, and the end of a man is his heel; between the heel and the hand seek you nothing else, Esdras.

but the entrance thereof is narrow, and is set in a dangerous place to fall, having a fire on the right hand, and on the left a deep water:

and there is one only path between them both, even between the fire and the water, so small that there could but one man go there at once.

Now therefore why you disquiet yourself, seeing you are but a corruptible man? and why are you moved, whereas you are but mortal?

After these years shall my son Christ die of those who, and all that have the breath of life.

And the world shall be turned into the old silence seven days, like as in the first beginning: so that no man shall remain.

And after seven days the world, that yet awakens not, shall be raised up, and that shall die that is corruptible.

And the earth shall restore those that are asleep in her, and so shall the dust those that dwell therein in silence, and the secret places shall deliver those souls that were committed to them.

For an evil heart has grown up in us, which has led us astray from these statutes, and has brought us into corruption and into the ways of death, has showed us the paths of perdition and removed us far from life; and that, not a few only, but well near all that have been created.

And I will not grieve over the multitude of those who perish; for these are those who are now like to vapor, and are become as flame and smoke; they are set on fire and burn hotly, and are quenched.

And I answered and said, O you earth, wherefore have you brought forth, if the mind is made out of dust, like as all other created things?

For it were better that the dust itself had been unborn, so that the mind might not have been made therefrom.

But now the mind grows with us, and by reason of this we are tormented, because we perish and know it.

Let the race of men lament and the beasts of the field be glad; let all that are born lament, but let the four-footed beasts and the cattle rejoice.

For it is far better with them than with us; for they look not for judgement, neither do they know of torments or of salvation promised to them after death.

and if after death we were not to come into judgement, perhaps it had been better for us.

And I answered and said, if I have found grace in your sight, O Lord, show this also to your servant, whether after death, even now when every one of us gives up his soul, we shall be kept in rest until those times come, in which you shall renew the creation, or whether we shall be tormented forthwith.

For concerning death the teaching is: When the determinate sentence has gone forth from the Most High that a man should die, as the spirit leaves the body to return again to him who gave it, it adores the glory of the Most High first of all.

these spirits shall not enter into habitations, but shall wander and be in torments forthwith, ever grieving and sad, in seven ways.

The second way, because they can’t now make a good returning that they may live.

Now this is the order of those who have kept the ways of the Most High, when they shall be separated from the corruptible vessel.

The first order, because they have striven with great labor to overcome the evil thought which was fashoned together with them, that it might not lead them astray from life into death.

The fifth order, they rejoice, seeing how they have now escaped from that which is corruptible, and how they shall inherit that which is to come, while they see moreover the straitness and the painfulness from which they have been delivered, and the large room which they shall receive with joy and immortality.

And I answered and said, shall time therefore be given to the souls after they are separated from the bodies, that they may see that whereof you have spoken to me?

and Elijah for those that received rain; and for the dead, that he might live:

I answered then and said, this is my first and last saying, that it had been better that the earth had not given you Adam: or else, when it had given him, to have restrained him from sinning.

For what profit is it for all that are in this present time to live in heaviness, and after death to look for punishment?

O you Adam, what have you done? For though it was you that sinned, the evil is not fallen on you alone, but upon all of us that come of you.

For what profit is it to us, if there be promised us an immortal time, whereas we have done the works that bring death?

For while we lived and committed iniquity, we considered not what we should have to suffer after death.

Then he answered and said, This is the condition of the battle, which man that is born upon the earth shall fight;

For you are come here without your will, and depart when you would not: for there is given you no longer space than only to live a short time.

For we and our fathers have passed our lives in ways that bring death: but you because of us sinners are called merciful.

For indeed I will not think on the fashioning of them which have sinned, or their death, their judgement, or their destruction;

The root of evil is sealed up from you, weakness is done away from you, and [death] is hidden; hell and corruption are fled into forgetfulness:

Therefore ask you no more questions concerning the multitude of them that perish.

and said in their heart, that there is no God; yes, and that knowing they must die.

For as the things aforesaid shall receive you, so thirst and pain which are prepared shall receive them: for the Most High willed not that men should come to nothing:

the same must know it after death by torment.

And when I spoke these things in my heart, I looked about me with my eyes, and upon the right side I saw a woman, and, behold, she mourned and wept with a loud voice, and was much grieved in mind, and her clothes were tore, and she had ashes upon her head.

And it so came to pass, that when my son was entered into his wedding chamber, he fell down, and died.

Then we all overthrew the lights, and all my neighbors rose up to comfort me: and I remained quiet to the second day at night.

And I do now purpose not to return into the city, but here to stay, and neither to eat nor drink, but continually to mourn and to fast until I die.

It is right now to mourn very sore, seeing we all mourn, and to be sorrowful, seeing we are all in sorrow, but you sorrowest for one son.