Tobit Chapter 3

*Tobit's Prayer*
1. Then I wept in my sorrow, and with pain I prayer, saying:

2. "O Lord, You are righteous. So too are all Your works. All Your ways are mercy and truth. Your judgments are true and just forever.+ 3. Remember me and look upon me with favor. Do not punish me for my sins and my ignorance, nor those sins of my fathers which they committed against You. 4. Because they disobeyed Your commands, so You gave us as spoil, captivity and death. You made us a byword of disgrace among all the nations in which we were scattered. 5. Now Your judgments concerning my sins are many and they are true, because I did them, and so did my fathers. For we did not keep Your commandments. Indeed we did not walk in truth before You. 6. Now do with me as is best before You. Command that my spirit be taken up, so I may be released and become soil, since it is better for me to die than to live. For I have heard false insults, and there is much sorrow within me. Command that I be freed from distress to now enter into the eternal place. Do not turn Your face away from me."+

7. On the same day, in Ecbatana of Media, Sarah, the daughter of Raguel, happened to be insulted by her fathers maids.+ 8. She was married to seven husbands, but before they could be with her as a wife, Asmodeus, the evil demon, killed them. So they said to her, "Do you not recollect that you strangled these husbands? You have already had seven husbands, but you have received no profit from any of them.+ 9. Therefore, why punish us? If they are dead, go with them. May we never see a son or daughter of yours."

10. When she heard this, she was so distressed that she considered hanging herself. But she said, "I am the only one of my father. If I do this, it will be a disgrace to him, and I will bring down his old age with sorrow into Hades." 11. So she prayed by her window and said:

*Sarah's Prayer*
12. Blessed are You, O Lord my God, Blessed is Your holy and precious name unto the ages. May all Your works bless You forever.+ 12. Now, O Lord, I offer myself completely to You. 13. Command that I be released from the land, that I may not hear such disgrace any more. 14. O Lord, You know that I am innocent of any sin with a man. 15. I have not defiled my name nor the name of my father in the land of my captivity. I am my father's only offspring. He has no other child who will be his heir. Neither does he have a brother close at hand, nor an adopted son that I might keep myself as a wife to him. Seven of my husbands have already perished. What should I live for? But if it does not seem good to You to kill me, command that I be looked upon with favor, and that mercy be shown to me, so that I may no longer hear disgrace."

16. The prayer of both was heard in the presence of the great glory of Raphael,+ 17. and he was sent to heal the two of them: to remove the white films from Tobit; to give Sarah of Raguel to Tobias the son of Tobit as a wife; and to bind Asmodeus the evil demon, for it fell upon Tobias to inherit her. At that same time Tobit returned and entered his house, and Sarah of Raguel came down from her upstairs room.

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OSB Notes:

+3:2 - Having has his own works judged (2:14), Tobit confesses it is the Lord who is righteous, as are His works.

+3:6 - In his pain, Tobit asks that he might die and enter into the eternal place.

+3:7 - Ecbatana is the capital of Media (see note at 1:14).

+3:8 - Asmodeus means "the destroyer". Jesus said of Satan, "The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy" (Jn 10:10).

+3:11 - Blessed are You, O Lord: These are the opening words of numerous Jewish and Christian prayers. Many services in the Orthodox Church being with, "Blessed is the Kingdom" or "Blessed is our God".

3:16, 17 - God answered the prayer of both Tobit and Sarah, sending the Archangel Raphael (meaning "God heals") to heal them.