Given by: Antiochus IV, the persecuting king, brought low by a wasting sickness and confessing on his sickbed. Given to: every reader tempted, as he was, to rise up against God.

Hellenistic kings styled themselves divine — Antiochus took the name 'Epiphanes,' god-manifest. His humiliating end rebukes that blasphemous self-exaltation and vindicates the faithful he had persecuted.

And when he himself could not now abide his own stench, he spoke thus: It is just to be subject to God, and that a mortal man should not equal himself to God.

Even the mightiest king must be subject to God; no mortal may set himself up as God's equal.

2 Maccabees 9:12

Your Spirit

Loves God

Loves Neighbor

Your Body

Moral Behaviour