25. If I pretended to eat this meat, just to live a little while longer, it would bring shame and disgrace on me and lead many young people astray.
26. For the present I might be able to escape what you could do to me, but whether I live or die, I cannot escape Almighty God.
27. If I die bravely now, it will show that I deserved my long life.
28. It will also show a good example of the way young people should be willing and glad to die for our sacred and respected laws.”As soon as he said these things, he went off to be tortured,
29. and the very people who had treated him kindly a few minutes before, now turned against him, because they thought he had spoken like a madman.
30. When they had beaten him almost to the point of death, he groaned and said, “The Lord possesses all holy knowledge. He knows I could have escaped these terrible sufferings and death, yet he also knows that I gladly suffer these things, because I fear him.”
31. So Eleazar died. But his courageous death was remembered as a glorious example, not only by young people, but by the entire nation as well.