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Chapter 3

 

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 I 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 selfsame time came Tobit home, and entered
into his house, and Sara the daughter of Raguel came down from her upper
chamber.