1 And Eleazar, an illustrious priest of the country, who had attained to length of days, and whose life had been adorned with virtue, caused the presbyters who were about him to cease to cry out to the holy God, and prayed thus:
2 O king, mighty in power, most high, Almighty God, who regulates the whole creation with your tender mercy,
3 look upon the seed of Abraham, upon the children of the sanctified Jacob, your sanctified inheritance, O Father, now being wrongfully destroyed as strangers in a strange land.
4 You destroyed Pharaoh, with his hosts of chariots, when that lord of this same Egypt was uplifted with lawless hardihood and loud-sounding tongue. Shedding the beams of your mercy upon the race of Israel, you did overwhelm him with his proud army.
5 When Sennacherim, the grievous king of the Assyrians, glorying in his countless hosts, had subdued the whole land with his spear, and was lifting himself against your holy city, with boastings grievous to be endured, you, O Lord, did demolish him and did show forth your might to many nations.
6 When the three friends in the land of Babylon of their own will exposed their lives to the fire rather than serve vain things, you did send a dewy coolness through the fiery furnace, and bring the fire upon all their adversaries.