2714 verses about Death

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.

For ask the earth, and she shall tell you, that it is she which ought to mourn for so many that grow upon her.

For out of her all had their beginnings, and others shall come; and, behold, they walk almost all into destruction, and the multitude of them is utterly rooted out.

Who then should make more mourning, she, that has lost so great a multitude, or you, which are grieved but for one?

but if you say to me, My lamentation is not like the earth’s, for I have lost the fruit of my womb, which I brought forth with pains, and bare with sorrows:

but it is with the earth after the manner of the earth; the multitude present in it is gone, as it came:

And she said to me, That will I not do: I will not go into the city, but here will I die.

Where is Uriel the angel, who came to me at the first? for he has caused me to fall into this great trance, and my end is turned into corruption, and my prayer to rebuke.

and, behold, I lay as one that had been dead, and my understanding was taken from me; and he took me by the right hand, and comforted me, and set me upon my feet, and said to me,

and whereas she told you of the death of her son, this is the solution:

And whereas she said to you, My son coming into his marriage chamber died, and that misfortune befell her: this was the destruction that came to Jerusalem.

And whereas you saw that the great head appeared no more, it signifieth that one of them shall die upon his bed, and yet with pain.

But for the two that remained, the sword shall devour them.

For we are not better than those who died there. And they wept with a loud voice. And I answered them, and said,

Know therefore, that they which be left behind are more blessed than those who are dead.

Therefore if so be that you⌃ will rule over your own understanding, and instruct your hearts, you⌃ shall be kept alive, and after death you⌃ shall obtain mercy.

For after death shall the judgement come, when we shall live again: and then shall the names of the righteous be manifest, and the works of the ungodly shall be declared.

For all the unbelievers shall die in their unbelief.

Behold, says the Lord, I bring evils upon the whole earth; sword and famine, and death and destruction.

For the Lord knows all those who trespass against him, therefore has he delivered them to death and destruction.

I will send evils upon you; widowhood, poverty, famine, sword, and pestilence, to waste your houses to destruction and death.

if you had not always slain my chosen, exalting the stroke of your hands, and saying over their dead, when you were drunken,

And your children shall die of hunger, and you shall fall by the sword: and your cities shall be broken down, and all your shall perish by the sword in the field.

And those who are in the mountains shall die of hunger, and eat their own flesh, and drink their own blood, for very hunger of bread, and thirst of water.

Gird up yourselves with sackcloth and garments of hair, and bewail your children, and lament; for your destruction is at hand.

For many of those who dwell upon earth shall perish of famine; and the other, that escape the famine, shall the sword destroy.

And the dead shall be cast out as dung, and there shall be no man to comfort them: for the earth shall be left desolate, and the cities thereof shall be cast down.

but I shall prove it with the greatest force from the fortitude of Eleazar, and seven kindred, and their mother, who suffered death in defence of virtue.

For all these, contemning pains even to death, by this contempt, demonstrated that reasoning has command over the passions.

For their virtues, then, it is right that I should commend those men who died with their mother at this time in behalf of rectitude; and for their honors, I may count them happy.

For he said that he had sinned, so as to be consequently worthy of death; and that if he were saved, he would celebrate to all men the blessedness of the holy place.

For being at war with Ptolemy in Egypt, he heard that on a report of his death being spread abroad, the inhabitants of Jerusalem had exceedingly rejoiced, and he quickly marched against them.

And having subdued them, he established a decree that if any of them lived according to the laws of his country he should die.

for even women, because they continued to circumcise their children, were flung down a precipice along with them, knowing beforehand of the punishment.

And should any of them be unwilling to eat the accursed food, they were to be tortured on the wheel, and so killed.

I would counsel you, old man, before your tortures begin, to taste the swine’s flesh, and save your life; for I feel respect for your age and hoary head, which since you have had so long, you appear to me to be no philosopher in retaining the superstition of the Jews.

No, not if you pluck out my eyes, and consume my entrails.

Mouth! you shall not pollute my old age, nor the full stature of a perfect life.

My fathers shall receive me pure, not having quailed before your compulsion, though to death.

And falling upon the ground, from his body having no power to support the pains, he yet kept his reasoning upright and unbending.

then one of the harsh spearbearers leaped upon his belly as he was falling, to force him upright.

Wherefore, partly in pity for his old age,

Why do you unreasonably destroy yourself, O Eleazar, with these miseries?

It would be disgraceful if we should live on some short time, and that scorned by all men for cowardice,

and be condemned by the tyrant for unmanliness, by not contending to the death for our divine law.

Wherefore do you, O children of Abraham, die nobly for your religion.

You⌃ spearbearers of the tyrant, why do you⌃ linger?

Beholding him so high-minded against misery, and not changing at their pity, they led him to the fire:

And he being at length burned down to the bones, and about to expire, raised his eyes Godward, and said,

You know, O God, that when I might have been saved, I am slain for the sake of the law by tortures of fire.

Let my blood be a purification for them, and take my life in recompense for theirs.

Thus speaking, the holy man departed, noble in his torments, and even to the agonies of death resisted in his reasoning for the sake of the law.

in no way shifted the rudder of piety till it sailed into the harbour of victory over death.

Of such a character ought those to be who perform the duties of the law at the risk of their own blood, and defend it with generous sweat by sufferings even to death.

O aged man of more power than tortures, elder more vigorous than fire, greatest king over the passions, Eleazar!

so, Eleazar, the descendant of Aaron, wasted away by the fire, did not give up his reasoning.

And, what is most wonderful, though an old man, though the labors of his body were now spent, and his fibres were relaxed, and his sinews worn out, he recovered youth.

O blessed old age, and reverend hoar head, and life obedient to the law, which the faithful seal of death perfected.

If, then, an old man, through religion, despised tortures even to death, confessedly religious reasoning is ruler of the passions.

Will you not reason upon this—that if you disobey, there will be nothing left for you but to die in tortures?

Why do we cheer ourselves with vain counsels, and venture upon a disobedience bringing death?

And let us bear in mind that we shall be dying as rebels.

Why withdraw ourselves from a most sweet life, and deprive ourselves of this pleasant world?

The law itself is not forward to put us to death, if we dread torture.

Whence has such angry zeal taken root in us, and such fatal obstinacy approved itself to us, when we might live unmolested by the king?

Why delay you, O tyrant? for we are readier to die than to transgress the injunctions of our fathers.

For we account escape to be worse than death.

And you think to scare us, by threatening us with death by tortures, as though you had learned nothing by the death of Eleazar.

But if aged men of the Hebrews have died in the cause of religion after enduring torture, more rightly should we younger men die, scorning your cruel tortures, which our aged instructor overcame.

Make the attempt, then, O tyrant; and if you put us to death for our religion, think not that you harm us by torturing us.

For we through this ill-treatment and endurance shall bear off the rewards of virtue.

And when they had laboured hard without effect in scourging him, they hurled him upon the wheel.

And the noble youth, extended upon this, became dislocated.

And with every member disjointed, he exclaimed in expostulation,

he answered, Not so powerful, O accursed ministers, is your wheel, as to stifle my reasoning; cut my limbs, and burn my flesh, and twist my joints.

While he was saying this, they heaped up fuel, and setting fire to it, strained him upon the wheel still more.

And the wheel was defiled all over with blood, and the hot ashes were quenched by the droppings of gore, and pieces of flesh were scattered about the axles of the machine.

And although the framework of his bones was now destroyed the high-minded and Abrahamic youth did not groan.

But, as though transformed by fire into immortality, he nobly endured the rackings, saying

And saying this, the revered youth abruptly closed his life.

And when all admired his courageous soul, the spearmen brought forward him who was second in point of age, and having put on iron hands, bound him with pointed hooks to the catapelt.

after they with the iron hands had violently dragged all the flesh from the neck to the chin, the panther-like beasts tore off the very skin of his head: but he, bearing with firmness this misery, said,

How sweet is every form of death for the religion of our fathers! and he said to the tyrant,

Now this one, having endured this praiseworthy death, the third was brought along, and exhorted by many to taste and save his life.

But he cried out and said, Know you⌃ not, that the father of those who are dead, became the father of me also; and that the same mother bare me; and that I was brought up in the same tenets?

Now then, whatever instrument of vengeance you⌃ have, apply it to my body, for you⌃ are not able to touch, even if you⌃ wish it, my soul.

But they, highly incensed at his boldness of speech, dislocated his hands and feet with racking engines, and wrenching them from their sockets, dismembered him.

And they dragged round his fingers, and his arms, and his legs, and his ankles.

And not being able by any means to strangle him, they tore off his skin, together with the extreme tips of his fingers, flayed him, and then haled him to the wheel;

around which his vertebral joints were loosened, and he saw his own flesh torn to shreds, and streams of blood flowing from his entrails.

And when about to die, he said,

And thus having died worthily of his kindred, they dragged forward the fourth, saying,

By the blessed death of my kindred, and the eternal punishment of the tyrant, and the glorious life of the pious, I will not repudiate the noble brotherhood.

Invent, O tyrant, tortures; that you may learn, even through them, that I am the brother of those tormented before.

When he had said this, the blood-thirsty, and murderous, and unhallowed Antiochus ordered his tongue to be cut out.

And when he had died, disfigured in his torments, the fifth leaped forward, and said,

But I have come of my own accord, that by the death of me, you may owe heavenly vengeance a punishment for more crimes.

O you hater of virtue and of men, what have we done that you thus revel in our blood?