Trippy connection to today's First Reading!

Hola chicas.

So I didn't finish all of Part One yet, but I wanted to stop and post here because what a coincidence that today's 1st reading (found here) so closely relates to the lieutenant's crazy thoughts about martyring the priests.

So on page 25, he's talking about the priests making choices to either marry or be killed. He says "It showed the deceptions they had practised all these years. For if they really believed in heaven or hell, they wouldn't mind a little pain now, in return for what immensities..."

So usually I don't read the readings before I go to Church and, as a visual learner, don't usually remember them if I just listen to them at Mass. But today I knew I was going to a Spanish Mass and so I read the readings ahead of time so it stuck with me. All of this is only important to say that this part from the reading really struck me when put by the lieutenant's thoughts:

"After he had died,
they tortured and maltreated the fourth brother in the same way.
When he was near death, he said,
"It is my choice to die at the hands of men
with the hope God gives of being raised up by him;
but for you, there will be no resurrection to life."2 Mac 7: 11-14 (ish).

If we read this through the eyes of one of the martyred priests saying this, then do we think that the lieutenant will prove that he has the hope of resurrection to life?

What does it say about the brother's hope for resurrection that he is so quick to state that his torturers no longer will have that chance?

So... do you agree? Do the lieutenant (and the men from Macabees) still have a chance of being raised up by God?

Oooh I can't wait to find out what the lieutenant decides to do! He's currently my favorite character (as written... not that he'd be my favorite as a real human), mostly because whenever he appears on the page I want to see what he's going to do next.