24. For it becomes not our years to dissemble, said he, that through this many of the young should suppose that Eleazar, the man of fourscore years and ten, had gone over to an alien religion;
25. and so they, by reason of my dissimulation, and for the sake of this brief and momentary life, should be led astray because of me, and thus I get to myself a pollution and a stain of mine old age.
26. For even if for the present time I shall remove from me the punishment of men, yet shall I not escape the hands of the Almighty, either living or dead.
27. Wherefore, by manfully parting with my life now, I will show myself worthy of mine old age,
28. and leave behind a noble ensample to the young to die willingly and nobly a glorious death for the reverend and holy laws. And when he had said these words, he went straightway to the instrument of torture.