2 Maccabees 7:26-28

New Catholic Bible

²⁶ After a great deal of encouraging on his part, she agreed to try to persuade him.

²⁷ However, she flouted the king’s wishes by saying to her son in their native language as she leaned close to him: “My son, have pity on me. I carried you in my womb for nine months, nursed you for three years, reared you, and provided for your needs up to this point in your life. ²⁸ I beg you, my child, to look at the heavens and the earth and see everything that is in them. Reflect on the fact that God did not create them from things that already existed^[a] and that the human race came into being in the same way.