Chapter 22

¹ Then Susanna groaned and said: I am hemmed in on every side; for if I do this now, it is death to me, and if I do not do it, I shall not escape your hands. But it is better for me, having not done it, to fall into your hands than to sin before the Lord.

² See the words of a chaste woman who is devoted to God: I am hemmed in, she says, on every side. For the Church is afflicted and straitened not only by the Jews, but also by the nations and by those falsely called Christians, who, ever eyeing her chastity and steadfastness, strive to corrupt her.

³ If therefore, she says, I do this, it is death to me. For to disobey God and to obey men works death and eternal punishment.

⁴ But if I do not do it, I shall not escape your hands. And this too she said truly. For those who are brought to trial for the name of Christ, if they do what is commanded by men, they have died to God but live to the world; and if they do not do it, they do not escape the hands of the judges, but, condemned by those very men, they die.

⁵ For it is better for us, not having done it, to fall into their hands than to sin before the Lord. For it is more excellent to die unjustly at the hands of men, that we may live with God, than, having consented to them and been released by them, to fall into the hands of God.

⁶ For this reason indeed our Lord Jesus Christ lived and died and rose again, that he might be Lord of the living and the dead.