They say the closest language to English is Frisian. Since Frisian is only spoken in a rural province of the already small Netherlands, it's not really a major language. Among the major languages, I would say Dutch is closer to English than Afrikaans. Dutch grammar corresponds more closely to that of English than Afrikaans without the grammatical cases of German.
In your example, "us shall live, us shall die" sounds kinda shoddy. Any English native would say "we shall live, we shall die." And indeed, the Dutch translation of "ons sal lewe, ons sal sterwe" is "wij zullen leven, wij zullen sterven" or "we zullen leven, we zullen sterven."