2 Maccabees 7:20-22

New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised Catholic Edition

²⁰ The mother was especially admirable and worthy of honourable memory. Although she saw her seven sons perish within a single day, she bore it with good courage because of her hope in the Lord. ²¹ She encouraged each of them in the language of their ancestors. Filled with a noble spirit, she reinforced her woman’s reasoning with a man’s courage, and said to them, ²² ‘I do not know how you came into being in my womb. It was not I who gave you life and breath, nor I who set in order the elements within each of you.