Tobit's Prayer
Tobit 3, verse 1. Then I wept in my sorrow, and with pain I prayed, saying: Tobit 3, verse 2. “O Lord, You are righteous. So too are all Your works. All Your ways are mercy and truth. Your judgments are true and just forever. Tobit 3, verse 3. Remember me and look upon me with favor. Do not punish me for my sins and my ignorance, nor those sins of my fathers which they committed against You. Tobit 3, verse 4. Because they disobeyed Your commands, so You gave us as spoil, captivity and death. You made us a byword of disgrace among all the nations in which we were scattered. Tobit 3, verse 5. Now Your judgments concerning my sins are many and they are true, because I did them, and so did my fathers. For we did not keep Your commandments. Indeed we did not walk in truth before You. Tobit 3, verse 6. Now do with me as is best before You. Command that my spirit be taken up, so I may be released and become soil, since it is better for me to die than to live. For I have heard false insults, and there is much sorrow within me. Command that I be freed from distress to now enter into the eternal place. Do not turn Your face away from me.” Tobit 3, verse 7. On the same day, in Ecbatana of Media, Sarah, the daughter of Raguel, happened to be insulted by her father's maids. Tobit 3, verse 8. She was married to seven husbands, but before they could be with her as a wife, Asmodeus, the evil demon, killed them. So they said to her, “Do you not recollect that you strangled these husbands? You have already had seven husbands, but you received no profit from any of them. Tobit 3, verse 9. Therefore, why punish us? If they are dead, go with them. May we never see a son or daughter of yours.” Tobit 3, verse 10. When she heard this, she was so distressed that she considered hanging herself. But she said, “I am the only one of my father. If I do this, it will be a disgrace to him, and I will bring down his old age with sorrow into Hades.”
Sarah's Prayer
Tobit 3, verse 11. So she prayed by her window and said: “Blessed are You, O Lord my God. Blessed is Your holy and precious name unto the ages. May all Your works bless You forever. Tobit 3, verse 12. Now, O Lord, I offer myself completely to You. Tobit 3, verse 13. Command that I be released from the land, that I may not hear such disgrace any more. Tobit 3, verse 14. O Lord, You know that I am innocent of any sin with a man. Tobit 3, verse 15. I have not defiled my name nor the name of my father in the land of my captivity. I am my father's only offspring. He has no other child who will be his heir. Neither does he have a brother close at hand, nor an adopted son that I might keep myself as a wife to him. Seven of my husbands have already perished. What should I live for? But if it does not seem good to You to kill me, command that I be looked upon with favor, and that mercy be shown to me, so I may no longer hear disgrace.” Tobit 3, verse 16. The prayer of both was heard in the presence of the great glory of Raphael, Tobit 3, verse 17. and he was sent to heal the two of them: to remove the white films from Tobit; to give Sarah of Raguel to Tobias the son of Tobit as a wife; and to bind Asmodeus the evil demon, for it fell upon Tobias to inherit her. At that same time Tobit returned and entered his house, and Sarah of Raguel came down from her upstairs room.