Tobit - Chapter 3

Passage

Then Tobias sighed, and began to pray with tears, Saying, You are just, O Lord, and all your judgments are just, and all your ways mercy, and truth, and judgment: And now, O Lord, think of me, and take not revenge of my sins, neither remember my offences, nor those of my parents. For we have not obeyed your commandments, therefore are we delivered to spoil and to captivity, and death, and are made a fable, and a reproach to all nations, among which you have scattered us. And now, O Lord, great are your judgments, because we have not done according to your precepts, and have not walked sincerely before you. And now, O Lord, do with me according to your will, and command my spirit to be received in peace: for it is better for me to die, than to live. Now it happened on the same day, that Sara daughter of Raguel, in Rages a city of the Medes, received a reproach from one of her father's servant maids, Because she had been given to seven husbands and a devil named Asmodeus had killed them, at their first going in to her. So when she reproved the maid for her fault, she answered her, saying: May we never see son, or daughter of you upon the earth, you murderer of your husbands. Will you kill me also, as you have already killed seven husbands? At these words, she went into an upper chamber of her house: and for three days and three nights did neither eat nor drink: But continuing in prayer with tears besought God, that he would deliver her from this reproach. And it happened on the third day when she was making an end of her prayer, blessing the Lord, She said: Blessed is your name, O God of our fathers, who when you have been angry, will show mercy, and in the time of tribulation forgivest the sins of them that call upon you. To you, O Lord, I turn my face, to you I direct my eyes. I beg, O Lord, that you loose me from the bond of this reproach, or else take me away from the earth. You know, O Lord, that I never coveted a husband, and have kept my soul clean from all lust. Never have I joined myself with them that play: neither have I made myself partaker with them that walk in lightness. But a husband I consented to take, with your fear, not with my lust. And either I was unworthy of them, or they perhaps were not worthy of me: because perhaps you have kept me for another man, For your counsel is not in man's power. But this every one is sure of that worships you, that his life, if it be under trial, shall be crowned and if it be under tribulation, it shall be delivered: and if it be under correction, it shall be allowed to come to your mercy. For you are not delighted in our being lost, because after a storm you make a calm, and after tears and weeping you pour in joyfulness. Be your name, O God of Israel, blessed for ever, At that time the prayers of them both were heard in the sight of the glory of the most high God: And the holy angel of the Lord, Raphael was sent to heal them both, whose prayers at one time were rehearsed in the sight of the Lord.