Antiochus decreed the abolition of Jewish worship, and the temple itself was defiled and rededicated to Olympian Zeus, while the people were forced under pain of death to eat swine's flesh and forsake the law. Two mothers who had circumcised their sons were paraded through the city and thrown from the wall, and others who kept the Sabbath in hiding were burned alive. Against this horror stands the aged scribe Eleazar, who refuses even to feign eating the unclean meat, choosing a noble death rather than lead the young astray by pretense and dying as an example of reverence for the law. The author pauses to teach that such sufferings are God's discipline of His people, not His abandonment of them, and the chapter matters as the first of the book's celebrated martyrdoms, exalting faithfulness unto death over mere survival.