Key Verse Spotlight
2 Maccabees 6:21 - Meaning and Application
Understand how this verse speaks to what you're facing and how to apply it today
Translation: World English Bible — Catholic Edition
" But those who had the charge of that forbidden sacrificial feast took the man aside, for the acquaintance which of old times they had with him, and privately implored him to bring flesh of his own providing, such as was proper for him to use, and to make as if he did eat of the flesh from the sacrifice, as had been commanded by the king; "
2 Maccabees 6:21
Verse in Context
Understanding the surrounding verses prevents misinterpretation:
19 But he, welcoming death with honor rather than life with defilement, advanced of his own accord to the instrument of torture, but first spat out the flesh,
20 as men ought to come who are resolute to repel such things as not even for the natural love of life is it lawful to taste.
21 But those who had the charge of that forbidden sacrificial feast took the man aside, for the acquaintance which of old times they had with him, and privately implored him to bring flesh of his own providing, such as was proper for him to use, and to make as if he did eat of the flesh from the sacrifice, as had been commanded by the king;
22 that by so doing he might be delivered from death, and so his ancient friendship with them might be treated kindly.
23 But he, having formed a high resolve, and one that became his years, the dignity of old age, and the gray hairs which he had reached with honor, and his excellent education from a child, or rather the holy laws of God’s ordaining, declared his mind accordingly, bidding them to quickly send him to Hades.
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2 Maccabees 6:1
"Not long after this, the king sent out an old man of Athens to compel the Jews to depart from the laws of their fathers and not to live by the laws of God,"
2 Maccabees 6:2
"and also to pollute the sanctuary in Jerusalem and to call it by the name of Olympian Zeus, and to call the sanctuary in Gerizim by the name of Zeus the Protector of foreigners, even as the people who lived in that place did."
2 Maccabees 6:3
"The visitation of this evil was harsh and utterly grievous."
2 Maccabees 6:4
"For the temple was filled with debauchery and reveling by the heathen, who dallied with prostitutes, and had intercourse with women within the sacred precincts, and moreover brought inside things that were not appropriate."
2 Maccabees 6:5
"The altar was filled with those abominable things which had been prohibited by the laws."
2 Maccabees 6:6
"A man could neither keep the Sabbath, nor observe the feasts of their ancestors, nor so much as confess himself to be a Jew."
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