Tobit 3
1 Then I being grieved did weep, and
in my sorrow prayed, saying, 2 O Lord,
thou art just, and all thy works and all thy ways are mercy and truth, and
thou judgest truly and justly for ever.
3 Remember me, and look on me; punish
me not for my sins and ignorances, and the sins of my
fathers, who have sinned before thee:
4 for they obeyed not thy
commandments: wherefore thou hast delivered us for a spoil, and unto
captivity, and unto death, and for a proverb of reproach to all the nations
among whom we are dispersed.
5 And now thy judgments are many and
true: deal with me according to my sins and my fathers'; because we have not
kept thy commandments, neither have walked in truth before thee.
6 Now therefore deal with me as
seemeth best unto thee, and command my spirit to be taken from me, that I may
be dissolved, and become earth: for it is profitable for me to die rather than
to live, because I have heard false reproaches, and have much sorrow: command
therefore that I may now be delivered out of this distress, and go into the
everlasting place: turn not thy face away from me.
7 It came to pass the same day, that
in Ecbatane a city of Media, Sara the daughter of Raguel was also reproached
by her father's maids; 8 because that
she had been married to seven husbands, whom Asmodeus the evil spirit had
killed, before they had lain with her. Dost thou not know, said they, that
thou hast strangled thine husbands? thou hast had already seven husbands,
neither wast thou named after any of them.
9 Wherefore dost thou beat us for
them? if they be dead, go thy ways after them, let us never see of thee either
son or daughter. 10 When she heard
these things she was very sorrowful, so that she thought to have strangled
herself; and she said, I am the only daughter of my father, and if I do this,
it shall be a reproach unto him, and I shall bring his old age with sorrow
unto the grave.
11 Then she prayed toward the window,
and said, Blessed art thou, O Lord my God, and thine holy and glorious name is
blessed and honourable for ever: let all thy works praise thee for ever.
12 And now, O Lord, I set mine eyes
and my face toward thee, 13 and say,
Take me out of the earth, that I may hear no more the reproach.
14 Thou knowest, Lord, that I am pure
from all sin with man, 15 and that I
never polluted my name, nor the name of my father, in the land of my
captivity: I am the only daughter of my father, neither hath he any child to
be his heir, neither any near kinsman, nor any son of his alive, to whom I may
keep myself for a wife: my seven husbands are already dead; and why should I
live? but if it please not thee that I should die, command some regard to be
had of me, and pity taken of me, that I hear no more reproach.
16 So the prayers of them both were
heard before the majesty of the great God.
17 And Raphael was sent to heal them
both, that is, to scale away the whiteness of Tobit's eyes, and to give Sara
the daughter of Raguel for a
wife to Tobias the son of Tobit: and to bind Asmodeus the evil spirit; because
she belonged to Tobias by right of inheritance. The self-same time came Tobit
home, and entered into his house, and Sara the daughter of Raguel came down
from her upper chamber.