Old Testament

New Testament

Tobit 1:8-19 New American Bible, Revised Edition (NABRE)

8. The third-year tithe I gave to orphans, widows, and converts who had joined the Israelites. Every third year I would bring them this offering, and we ate it in keeping with the decree laid down in the Mosaic law concerning it, and according to the commands of Deborah, the mother of my father Tobiel; for my father had died and left me an orphan.

9. When I reached manhood, I married Anna, a woman of our ancestral family. By her I had a son whom I named Tobiah.

10. Now, after I had been deported to the Assyrians and came as a captive to Nineveh, all my kindred and my people used to eat the food of the Gentiles,

11. but I refrained from eating that Gentile food.

12. Because I was mindful of God with all my heart,

13. the Most High granted me favor and status with Shalmaneser, so that I became purchasing agent for all his needs.

14. Until he died, I would go to Media to buy goods for him there. I also deposited pouches of silver worth ten talents in trust with my kinsman Gabael, son of Gabri, who lived at Rages, in the land of Media.

15. When Shalmaneser died and his son Sennacherib came to rule in his stead, the roads to Media became unsafe, so I could no longer go to Media.

16. In the days of Shalmaneser I had performed many charitable deeds for my kindred, members of my people.

17. I would give my bread to the hungry and clothing to the naked. If I saw one of my people who had died and been thrown behind the wall of Nineveh, I used to bury him.

18. Sennacherib returned from Judea, having fled during the days of the judgment enacted against him by the King of Heaven because of the blasphemies he had uttered; whomever he killed I buried. For in his rage he killed many Israelites, but I used to take their bodies away by stealth and bury them. So when Sennacherib looked for them, he could not find them.

19. But a certain Ninevite went and informed the king about me, that I was burying them, and I went into hiding. When I realized that the king knew about me and that I was being hunted to be put to death, I became afraid and took flight.

Read complete chapter Tobit 1