1. And I was grieved and wept, and prayed in sorrow, saying,
2. O Lord, you are righteous, and all your works and all your ways are mercy and truth, and you judge true and righteous judgement for ever.
3. Remember me, and look on me; take not vengeance on me for my sins and mine ignorances, and the sins of my fathers, which sinned before you:
4. for they disobeyed your commandments; and you gave us for a spoil, and for captivity, and for death, and for a proverb of reproach to all the nations among whom we are dispersed.
5. And now many are your judgments, true are they; that you should deal with me according to my sins and the sins of my fathers: because we did not keep your commandments, for we walked not in truth before you.
6. And now deal with me according to that which is pleasing in your sight, command my spirit to be taken from me, that I may be released, and become earth: for it is profitable for me to die rather than to live, because I have heard false reproaches, and there is much sorrow in me: command that I be now released from my distress, and go to the everlasting place: turn not your face away from me.
7. The same day it happened to Sarah the daughter of Raguel in Ecbatana of Media, that she also was reproached by her father’s maidservants;
8. because that she had been given to seven husbands, and Asmodaeus the evil spirit killed them, before they had lain with her. And they said to her, Do you not know that you strangle your husbands? you have had already seven husbands, and you have had no profit of any one of them.
9. Wherefore do you scourge us? if they be dead, go your ways with them; let us never see of you either son or daughter.
10. When she heard these things, she was grieved exceedingly, so that she thought to have hanged herself: and she said, I am the only daughter of my father; if I do this, it shall be a reproach to him, and I shall bring down his old age with sorrow to the grave.
11. And she prayed by the window, and said, Blessed are you, O Lord my God, and blessed is your holy and honorable name for ever: let all your works praise you for ever.
12. And now, Lord, I have set mine eyes and my face toward you: