Tobit Buries a Murdered Man

1 And when Esarhaddon was king I came home again, and my wife Anna and my son Tobias were restored to me. And at our festival of Pentecost,⁠a which is the holy Feast of the Weeks, a good dinner was prepared for me, and I lay down to eat.

2 And the table was set for me, and abundant food was set for me, and I said to Tobias my son, “Go, my boy, and find a poor man among our relatives of the Ninevite captives, who remembers God with his whole heart.⁠b Bring him to eat with me. I will wait for you, my boy, until you return.”⁠c

3 And Tobias went to look for a poor man among our relatives and returned and said, “Father!” And I said to him, “Here I am, my child.” And he answered and said, “Father, look, one of our nation has been murdered and cast out in the marketplace, and he has just been strangled.”

4 And I sprang up and left my dinner before I had tasted it, and took him up from the street and put him in one of the chambers until sunset, so I could bury him.⁠d

5 Therefore I returned and washed myself, and ate my food in sorrow, 6 and remembered the words that the prophet Amos spoke against Bethel, saying, “Your festivals will turn into mourning, and all your ways into lamentation.” And I wept.

7 And at sunset, I went and dug a grave and buried him.

8 And my neighbors mocked, saying, “Is he no longer afraid?” For I had already been sought out to be put to death for this. “He ran away and lost all his possessions, and here he is burying the dead again!”

Tobit Becomes Blind

9 And the same night I washed myself and came into my courtyard and lay down to sleep by the wall of the courtyard, and my face was uncovered because of the heat.

10 And I did not know that there were sparrows in the wall above me. Their warm droppings fell into my eyes and caused white films to form. I went to doctors to be healed, and the more they anointed me with their medicines, the more my eyes were blinded by the films, until they were totally blinded. And I was unable to see for four years. And all my relatives grieved for me, and Ahikar supported me for two years until he went to Elymais.

Anna Supports the Family

11 And at that time my wife Anna earned wages by doing women’s⁠e work, 12 and would send the finished work back to its owners, and they would pay her the wages. And on the seventh of Dystrus, she cut the cloth from the loom, and sent it home to the owners and they gave her all her wages, and gave her in addition to the wages a young goat.

13 And when she came into my house, the young goat began to bleat, and I called her and said, “Where did this young goat come from? Is it stolen? Return it to its owners, because we have no right to eat anything stolen.”

14 And she said to me, “It was given to me in addition to my wages.” And I did not believe her, and I told her to return it to the owners, and I felt ashamed before her because of this. Then she answered and said to me, “Where are your charitable deeds? Where is your righteous way of life?⁠f Look, everyone knows what has happened to you.”