ℹ️ This corpus has no verse-level morphological tagging. Lemmas come mainly from word-level tagging of other books in the same language (not from this verse), falling back to dictionary form-matching for the rest. Rare homographs can still be misread; verify against the original and a specialist lexicon where precision matters.
ℹ️ The Chinese and English alongside are this site's own translation, made directly from the original text on this page (not the CUV or the WEB, which follow the Masoretic Text and a different textual tradition).
For one might tell of countless numbers who displayed a marvellous zeal for piety toward the God of the universe, not only from the time when the persecution against all was stirred up, but long before, while the things of peace were still being held together.
For when he who had received the authority was but just then beginning to bestir himself, as it were from a deep stupor, and was still secretly and obscurely making attempts upon the churches in the interval after Decius and Valerian, and was not all at once stripping himself for war against us all, but was as yet making trial only upon those in the camps—for in this way he thought that the rest also might easily be taken, if first he should overcome these by fighting them—then one might see very many of those in military service most gladly embracing private life, that they might not become renegades from their piety toward the Creator of the universe.
For when the commander of the camp, whoever he was, was just then for the first time setting his hand to the persecution of the troops, sorting out and thoroughly sifting those enrolled in the camps, and giving them a choice either to obey and enjoy the rank which belonged to them, or, on the contrary, to be deprived of it if they should set themselves against the command—very many soldiers of Christ's kingdom, without hesitation, unquestionably preferred the confession of Him to the seeming glory and prosperity which they possessed.
And already in rare cases one or two of these were exchanging not only the loss of their rank, but even death, for their godly steadfastness; for as yet he who was carrying out the design was acting with a certain moderation, and venturing to proceed unto blood only in some instances, fearing, as it seems, the multitude of the faithful, and shrinking from rushing all at once into war against all.
But when he stripped himself for battle yet more nakedly, it is not possible to recount in words how many and what manner of martyrs of God it was given to behold with their eyes for those dwelling throughout all the cities and the country regions.