13. And one and all, looking on each other serene and confident, said, Let us sacrifice with all our heart our souls to God who gave them, and employ our bodies for the keeping of the law.
14. Let us not fear him who thinks he kills;
15. for great is the trial of soul and danger of eternal torment laid up for those who transgress the commandment of God.
16. Let us arm ourselves, therefore, in the abnegation of the divine reasoning.
17. If we suffer thus, Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob will receive us, and all the fathers will commend us.
18. And as each one of the brethren was haled away, the rest exclaimed, Disgrace us not, O brother, nor falsify those who died before you.
19. Now you are not ignorant of the charm of brotherhood, which the Divine and all wise Providence has imparted through fathers to children, and has engendered through the mother’s womb.
20. In which these brothers having remained an equal time, and having been formed for the same period, and been increased by the same blood, and having been perfected through the same principle of life,
21. and having been brought forth at equal intervals, and having sucked milk from the same fountains, hence their brotherly souls are reared up lovingly together;
22. and increase the more powerfully by reason of this simultaneous rearing, and by daily intercourse, and by other education, and exercise in the law of God.
23. Brotherly love being thus sympathetically constituted, the seven brethren had a more sympathetic mutual harmony.
24. For being educated in the same law, and practising the same virtues, and reared up in a just course of life, they increased this harmony with each other.