1And being deeply grieved in my soul, I groaned and wept, and I began to pray with groanings:
2“You are righteous, O Lord, and all your works are righteous, and all your ways are mercy and truth; you judge the world.
3And now, O Lord, remember me and look upon me. Do not punish me for my sins and my errors of ignorance, nor for those of my fathers. I have sinned before you
4and I disobeyed your commandments. And so you gave us over to plunder, captivity, and death, and to be a byword, a taunt, and a reproach among all the nations where you have scattered us.
5And now your many judgments are true, which you bring upon me for my sins. For we have not kept your commandments, nor have we walked truthfully before you.
6And now, do with me as is pleasing to you, and command my spirit to be taken from me, so that I may be released from the face of the earth and become earth myself. For it is better for me to die than to live, because I have heard false reproaches, and great sorrow is with me. Lord, command that I be released from this distress; release me to the eternal place, and do not turn your face away from me, O Lord. For it is better for me to die than to see so much distress in my life and to hear such reproaches.”
7On that very day, it happened that Sarah, the daughter of Raguel in Ecbatana of Media, also heard reproaches from one of her father’s female servants,
8because she had been given in marriage to seven husbands, and Asmodeus, the evil demon, had killed them before they could be with her as is customary for wives. The servant girl said to her, “You are the one who kills your husbands! Look, you have already been given to seven husbands, and you have not borne the name of a single one of them.
9Why do you torment us about your husbands, because they died? Go along with them! May we never see a son or daughter of yours forever!”
10On that day she was grieved in her soul and wept. She went up to her father’s upper room and wanted to hang herself. But she thought again and said, “Lest they reproach my father and say to him, ‘You had one beloved daughter, and she hanged herself because of her troubles.’ I would bring my father’s old age down to Hades with sorrow. It is better for me not to hang myself, but to pray to the Lord that I might die and no longer have to hear reproaches in my life.”
11At that very moment, stretching out her hands toward the window, she prayed and said: “Blessed are you, O merciful God, and blessed is your name forever, and may all your works bless you forever.
12And now to you I have lifted up my face and my eyes.
13Command that I be released from the earth, so that I may no longer hear reproaches.
14You know, O Master, that I am pure from any impurity with a man,
15and I have not defiled my name, nor the name of my father, in the land of my captivity. I am my father’s only child, and he has no other child to be his heir, nor does he have a close brother or a kinsman for whom I should keep myself as a wife. Seven have already perished for me, so why should I live any longer? And if it does not please you to kill me, O Lord, then listen now to the reproach against me.”
16At that very moment, the prayer of them both was heard before the glory of God,
17and Raphael was sent to heal the two of them: Tobit, to remove the white films from his eyes so that he might see the light of God with his own eyes; and Sarah, the daughter of Raguel, to give her as a wife to Tobias son of Tobit, and to bind Asmodeus the evil demon from her, because it was Tobias’s right to inherit her before all others who wished to take her. At that same time, Tobit returned from his courtyard into his house, and Sarah the daughter of Raguel also came down from her upper room.
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