3
1 And I was grieved and wept, and prayed in sorrow, saying,
2 O Lord, thou art righteous, and all thy works and all thy ways are mercy and truth, and thou judgest true and righteous judgement for ever. 3 Remember me, and look on me; take not vengeance on me for my sins and mine ignorances, and the sins of my fathers, which sinned before thee: 4 for they disobeyed thy commandments; and thou gavest us for a spoil, and for captivity, and for death, and for a proverb of reproach to all the nations among whom we are dispersed. 5 And now many are thy judgments, true are they; that thou shouldest deal with me according to my sins and the sins of my fathers: because we did not keep thy commandments, for we walked not in truth before thee. 6 And now deal with me according to that which is pleasing in thy sight, command my spirit to be taken from me, that I may be released, and become earth: for it is profitable for me to die rather than to live, because I have heard false reproaches, and there is much sorrow in me: command that I be now released from my distress, and go to the everlasting place: turn not thy face away from me.
7 The same day it happened unto Sarah the daughter of Raguel in Ecbatana of Media, that she also was reproached by her father’s maidservants; 8 because that she had been given to seven husbands, and Asmodaeus the evil * spirit slew them, before they had lain with her. And they said unto her, Dost thou not know that thou stranglest thy husbands? thou hast had already seven husbands, and thou hast had no profit of any one of them. 9 Wherefore dost thou scourge us? if they be dead, go thy ways with them; let us never see of thee either son or daughter. 10 When she heard these things, she was grieved exceedingly, so that she thought to have hanged herself: and she said, I am the only daughter of my father; if I do this, it shall be a reproach unto him, and I shall bring down his old age with sorrow to † the grave. 11 And she prayed by the window, and said, Blessed art thou, O Lord my God, and blessed is thy holy and honourable name for ever: let all thy works praise thee for ever. 12 And now, Lord, I have set mine eyes and my face toward thee: 13 command that I be released from the earth, and that I no more hear 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, and he hath no child that shall be his heir, nor brother near him, nor son belonging to him, that I should keep myself for a wife unto him: seven husbands of mine are dead already; why should I live? And if it pleaseth thee not to slay me, command some regard to be had of me, and pity taken of me, and that I hear no more reproach.
16 And the prayer of both was heard before the glory of the great God. 17 Raphael also was sent to heal them both, to scale away the white films from Tobit’s eyes, and to give Sarah the daughter of Raguel for a wife to Tobias the son of Tobit; and to bind Asmodaeus the evil ‡ spirit; because it belonged to Tobias that he should inherit her. The selfsame time did Tobit return and enter into his house, and Sarah the daughter of Raguel came down from her upper chamber.
* 3:8 Gr. demon. † 3:10 Gr. Hades. ‡ 3:17 Gr. demon.