Catholic Public Domain Version

2 Maccabees 9:6-18 Catholic Public Domain Version (CPDV)

6. And, indeed, it sprung forth justly, since he had tormented the internal organs of others with many strange and new tortures, yet he in no way ceased from his malice.

7. But, beyond this, being filled with arrogance, breathing fire with his soul against the Jews, and instructing the task to be accelerated, it happened that, as he was rushing on forcefully, he fell from the chariot, and his limbs were afflicted with a serious bruising of the body.

8. And he, being filled with arrogance beyond human means, seemed to himself to command even the waves of the sea and to weigh even the heights of the mountains in a balance. But now, humbled to the ground, he was carried on a stretcher, calling himself as a witness to the manifest virtue of God.

9. So then, worms swarmed from his impious body, and, as he lived on in pain, his flesh fell away, and then his odorous stench oppressed the army.

10. And him who, a little before, thought that he could touch the stars of heaven, no one could endure to carry, because of the intolerable stench.

11. And so, from then on, being led away from his heavy arrogance by the admonishment of a divine plague, he began to come to an understanding of himself, with his pains increasing through every moment.

12. And, when he could not even bear his own stench, he spoke in this way: "It is just to be subject to God, and a mortal should not consider himself equal to God."

13. Then this wicked one prayed to the Lord, from whom, subsequently, there might be no mercy.

14. And the city, to which he was going in haste to pull it down to the ground and to make it a mass grave, he now wanted to make free.

15. And the Jews, whom he had said he certainly did not consider worthy even to be buried, but would deliver them to be torn apart by birds and wild beasts, and would exterminate them with their little ones, he now promised to make equal with the Athenians.

16. And even the holy temple, which before he had plundered, he would adorn with the best gifts, and increase the holy vessels, and pay out from his revenues the charges pertaining to the sacrifices.

17. Beyond these things, he would even become a Jew himself, and would travel through every place on earth and declare the power of God.

18. But, when his pains did not cease, (for the just judgment of God had overwhelmed him,) in despair he wrote to the Jews, in the manner of a supplication, a letter composed in this way: