The Roman general Trayanos captured two Jewish brothers — Lulianus and Pappus — in the city of Laodicea and sentenced them to death. Before the execution, Trayanos offered them a taunt disguised as a challenge.
"If you are truly of the same people as Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah — the three youths who survived the fiery furnace — then let your God come and save you from my hand, just as He saved them from Nebuchadnezzar."
Lulianus and Pappus looked at the general and gave an answer that stunned the court.
"Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah were perfectly righteous men," they said, "and Nebuchadnezzar was a king worthy of having a miracle performed through him. But we are not perfectly righteous. And you, Trayanos, are a wicked, common man — not worthy of being the instrument of a divine miracle."
They were not finished. "If we are to die," they continued, "know that God has many agents of death besides you. Bears, lions, serpents, scorpions — any of them could kill us. But the Holy One, blessed be He, has delivered us into your hand only so that He may exact our blood from you in the future."
The Talmud in Taanit (18b) and the Sifre record that Trayanos executed them both that day. But the rabbis taught that he did not live long afterward. Retribution found him, just as the brothers had promised. Their defiance became a model for Jewish martyrdom — accepting death not with despair, but with the absolute certainty that God keeps accounts.