Prayer of Tobit
1 ① Distressed, I wept and prayed and expressing my sorrow, I said, 2“You are just, O Lord; all your actions and all your ways are merciful and just; your judgments are always true and just. 3Remember me, Lord, and look on me. Do not punish me for my sins nor for the wrongs I have committed through ignorance. Pardon the sins which my fathers have committed in your sight, 4for they disobeyed your commandments. You have allowed us to suffer pillage, captivity and death. You have allowed us to be mocked by all the pagan nations among whom we have been dispersed. 5Ah well! All your judgments are just when you choose to punish me for my sins and those of my fathers, because we have not accomplished your will, nor have we sincerely obeyed your commands. We have not walked before you in truth.
6Do with me as you will. Order my life taken from me, and turn me into dust, because I prefer death to life. In this way free me and let me return to dust. It is better for me to die than to live, because these unjust reproaches have caused me great distress. Command that I be now released from trials, and let me enter my eternal dwelling place. Do not turn your face away from me.”
Sara’s misfortune
7 ② That same day, at Ecbatana in Media, Sara, the daughter of Ragouel, was insulted in a similar way by her father’s young maidservants. 8Sara had had seven husbands, but the demon Asmodeus had killed each one of them before the marriage had been consummated. The maidservants said, “It was you who killed your husbands. You have had seven husbands and you have not enjoyed marital relationship with any of them. 9Why do you punish us? Since they are dead, go and join them. May we never see a son or daughter of yours!”
10That same day Sara was so distressed in mind that she went to the upper room in her father’s house. She wished to hang herself. But she thought better of it and said: “If people ever reproached my father and said to him: ‘You had an only daughter whom you cherished and she hanged herself because she was unhappy,’ I would cause my father in his old age to die of grief. It is better for me not to hang myself but to ask the Lord that I may die and not live to hear any more insults.”
11At that moment she stretched forth her hands towards the window and prayed, saying, “You are blessed, O Lord my God, and blessed is your holy and glorious Name through out the ages. May all your works praise you forever. 12Lord I have turned my eyes and my face towards you. 13Command that I be set free from the earth and that I may hear no more insults. 14You know, O Lord, that I am pure of all contact with man; 15that I have not defiled my name, nor my father’s name in the country of my captivity. I am my father’s only daughter. He has no other son or daughter who can inherit from him, neither has he a close relative who can be given to me as a husband. So, after my seven husbands are dead, I have no one to live for. If it does not seem good to you, O Lord, that I should die, command that people will respect me and have pity on me and that I may hear no more insults.”
16The Lord in his glory heard the prayer of Tobit and of Sara 17and he sent Raphael to heal them both – to give back his sight to Tobit and to give Sara, the daughter of Ragouel, to Tobit’s son Tobias, as his wife. Also, Raphael would enchain the wicked demon Asmodeus so that Sara would be the wife of Tobias.
At the same time Tobit, who had gone for a short walk, returned to the house; and Sara, the daughter of Ragouel, came down from the upper room.
- Tb 3,1 He has dedicated his life in faithfulness to God and now finds himself poor, blind and, even, insulted by his wife Anna. How does he react? He presents his problem to God without complaining about anyone, not even about his wife. In the Bible we repeatedly see that God tests us before granting us a special favor. We will really understand when we hear what Christ says to the disciples of Emmaus: Did not the Messiah have to suffer all this to enter into his glory? (Lk 24:26). He is in solidarity with his sinner people and finds it just to be punished, even though he asks to be freed from this punishment. He feels incapable of fighting alone in life, and asks for death, but leaves everything in God's hands. His prayer is to ask for strength and the ability to fulfill what God says and demands and not to present to God his own plan and ask him to realize it, as we often do when we pray. Tb 3,7 When we find ourselves in Sara's situation, we immediately blame God. Sara thinks about her problem and, in thinking, she sees that she must change her mind and must not ask for death. When we look at one isolated event in life, we can despair, but if we look at the whole, we will always find some reason to keep on struggling. Sara's reason to keep on living is her love for her father and her desire to give him heirs. Whenever there is despair it is because we look only at one aspect of life as, for example, the economic aspect. Oftentimes, someone who fights for a cause, or a ruler, wants to give up everything because he is being criticized, without looking at all the good he would not accomplish if he quit.
- Tb 3,1 He has dedicated his life in faithfulness to God and now finds himself poor, blind and, even, insulted by his wife Anna. How does he react? He presents his problem to God without complaining about anyone, not even about his wife. In the Bible we repeatedly see that God tests us before granting us a special favor. We will really understand when we hear what Christ says to the disciples of Emmaus: Did not the Messiah have to suffer all this to enter into his glory? (Lk 24:26). He is in solidarity with his sinner people and finds it just to be punished, even though he asks to be freed from this punishment. He feels incapable of fighting alone in life, and asks for death, but leaves everything in God's hands. His prayer is to ask for strength and the ability to fulfill what God says and demands and not to present to God his own plan and ask him to realize it, as we often do when we pray. Tb 3,7 When we find ourselves in Sara's situation, we immediately blame God. Sara thinks about her problem and, in thinking, she sees that she must change her mind and must not ask for death. When we look at one isolated event in life, we can despair, but if we look at the whole, we will always find some reason to keep on struggling. Sara's reason to keep on living is her love for her father and her desire to give him heirs. Whenever there is despair it is because we look only at one aspect of life as, for example, the economic aspect. Oftentimes, someone who fights for a cause, or a ruler, wants to give up everything because he is being criticized, without looking at all the good he would not accomplish if he quit.
