shut their ears, as having long ago devoted themselves to die,
and they were irritated at Josephus. They then ran upon him with
their swords in their hands, one from one quarter, and another
from another, and called him a coward, and everyone of them
appeared openly as if he were ready to smite him; but he calling
to one of them by name, and looking like a general to another,
and taking a third by the hand, and making a fourth ashamed of
himself, by praying him to forbear, and being in this condition
distracted with various passions, (as he well might in the great
distress he was then in,) he kept off every one of their swords
from killing him, and was forced to do like such wild beasts as
are encompassed about on every side, who always turn themselves
against those that last touched them. Nay, some of their right
hands were debilitated by the reverence they bare to their
general in these his fatal calamities, and their swords dropped
out of their hands; and not a few of them there were, who, when
they aimed to smite him with their swords, they were not
thoroughly either willing or able to do it.

7. However, in this extreme distress, he was not destitute of his
usual sagacity; but trusting himself to the providence of God, he
put his life into hazard [in the manner following]: "And now,"
said he, "since it is resolved among you that you will die, come
on, let us commit our mutual deaths to determination by lot. He
whom the lot falls to first, let him be killed by him that hath
the second lot, and thus fortune shall make its progress through
us all; nor shall any of us perish by his own right hand, for it
would be unfair if, when the rest are gone, somebody should
repent and save himself." This proposal appeared to them to be
very just; and when he had prevailed with them to determine this