4 Maccabees 17:21-23

Revised Standard Version

²¹ the tyrant was punished, and the homeland purified—they having become, as it were, a ransom for the sin of our nation. ²² And through the blood of those devout ones and their death as an expiation, divine Providence preserved Israel that previously had been afflicted.

²³ For the tyrant Anti′ochus, when he saw the courage of their virtue and their endurance under the tortures, proclaimed them to his soldiers as an example for their own endurance,