Faithful One

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Then sad at heart, I groaned and wept aloud. With sobs I began to pray:*

“You are righteous, Lord,
and all your deeds are just;
All your ways are mercy and fidelity;
you are judge of the world.

And now, Lord, be mindful of me
and look with favor upon me.

Do not punish me for my sins,
or for my inadvertent offenses,
or for those of my ancestors.

“They sinned against you,
and disobeyed your commandments.

So you handed us over to plunder, captivity, and death,
to become an object lesson, a byword, and a reproach
in all the nations among whom you scattered us.c

“Yes, your many judgments are right
in dealing with me as my sins,
and those of my ancestors, deserve.

For we have neither kept your commandments,
nor walked in fidelity before you.

“So now, deal with me as you please;
command my life breath to be taken from me,
that I may depart from the face of the earth and become dust.

It is better for me to die than to live,
because I have listened to undeserved reproaches,
and great is the grief within me.

“Lord, command that I be released from such anguish;
let me go to my everlasting abode;
Do not turn your face away from me, Lord.

For it is better for me to die
than to endure so much misery in life,
and to listen to such reproaches!”

On that very day, at Ecbatana in Media, it so happened that Raguel’s daughter Sarah also had to listen to reproaches from one of her father’s maids.

For she had been given in marriage to seven husbands, but the wicked demon Asmodeus* kept killing them off before they could have intercourse with her, as is prescribed for wives. The maid said to her: “You are the one who kills your husbands! Look! You have already been given in marriage to seven husbands, but you do not bear the name of a single one of them.

Why do you beat us? Because your husbands are dead? Go, join them! May we never see son or daughter of yours!”

That day Sarah was sad at heart. She went in tears to an upstairs room in her father’s house and wanted to hang herself. But she reconsidered, saying to herself: “No! May people never reproach my father and say to him, ‘You had only one beloved daughter, but she hanged herself because of her misfortune.’ And thus would I bring my father laden with sorrow in his old age to Hades. It is far better for me not to hang myself, but to beg the Lord that I might die, and no longer have to listen to such reproaches in my lifetime.”e

At that same time, with hands outstretched toward the window,* she implored favor:

“Blessed are you, merciful God!
Blessed be your holy and honorable name forever!
May all your works forever bless you.

At that very time, the prayer of both of them was heard in the glorious presence of God.

So Raphael was sent to heal them both: to remove the white scales from Tobit’s eyes, so that he might again see with his own eyes God’s light; and to give Sarah, the daughter of Raguel, as a wife to Tobiah, the son of Tobit, and to rid her of the wicked demon Asmodeus. For it fell to Tobiah’s lot* to claim her before any others who might wish to marry her.

At that very moment Tobit turned from the courtyard to his house, and Raguel’s daughter Sarah came down from the upstairs room.

Tobit 3:1-11,16-17

"In trial or triumph, in sickness or strength, in end and beginning, You will never fail." (from the song 'Never Fail' by Feast Worship)

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