1. And Eleazar, an illustrious priest of the country, who had attained to length of days, and whose life had been adorned with virtue, caused the presbyters who were about him to cease to cry out to the holy God, and prayed thus:
2. O king, mighty in power, most high, Almighty God, who regulates the whole creation with your tender mercy,
3. look upon the seed of Abraham, upon the children of the sanctified Jacob, your sanctified inheritance, O Father, now being wrongfully destroyed as strangers in a strange land.
4. You destroyed Pharaoh, with his hosts of chariots, when that lord of this same Egypt was uplifted with lawless hardihood and loud-sounding tongue. Shedding the beams of your mercy upon the race of Israel, you did overwhelm him with his proud army.
5. When Sennacherim, the grievous king of the Assyrians, glorying in his countless hosts, had subdued the whole land with his spear, and was lifting himself against your holy city, with boastings grievous to be endured, you, O Lord, did demolish him and did show forth your might to many nations.
6. When the three friends in the land of Babylon of their own will exposed their lives to the fire rather than serve vain things, you did send a dewy coolness through the fiery furnace, and bring the fire upon all their adversaries.
7. It was you who, when Daniel was hurled, through slander and envy, as a prey to lions down below, did bring him back against unhurt to light.
8. When Jonah was pining away in the belly of the sea-bred monster, you did look upon him, O Father, and recover him to the sight of his own.
9. And now, you who hate insolence; you who do abound in mercy; you who are the protector of all things; appear quickly to those of the race of Israel, who are insulted by abhorred, lawless gentiles.
10. 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.
11. Let not the vain-minded congratulate vain idols at the destruction of your beloved, saying, Neither did their god deliver them.
12. You, who are All-powerful and Almighty, O Eternal One, behold! have mercy upon us who are being withdrawn from life, like traitors, by the unreasoning insolence of lawless men.
13. Let the heathen cower before your invincible might today, O glorious One, who have all power to save the race of Jacob.
14. The whole band of infants and their parents with tears beseech you.
15. Let it be shewn to all the nations that you are with us, O Lord, and have not turned your face away from us; but as you said that you would not forget them even in the land of their enemies, so do you fulfil this saying, O Lord.