Wednesday 1 June 2005

1I 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 judgment forever.3Remember me, and look at me.Don’t take vengeance on me for my sins and my ignorances,and the sins of my fathers who sinned before you.4For they disobeyed your commandments.You gave us as plunder,for captivity, for death,and for a proverb of reproach to all the nations amongwhom we are dispersed.5Now your judgments are many and true,that you should deal with me according to my sinsand the sins of my fathers,because we didn’t keep your commandments,for we didn’t walk in truth before you.6Now deal with me according to thatwhich is pleasing in your sight.Command my spirit to be taken from me,that I may be released, and become earth.For it is more 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 released from my distress,now, and go to the everlasting place.Don’t turn your face away from me.”

7The same day it happened to Sarah the daughter of Raguel in Ecbatana of Media,that she also was reproached by her father’s maidservants;8because 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 haven’t borne the name of any one of them.9Why do you scourge us?If they are dead, go your ways with them.Let us never see either son or daughter from you.”10When she heard these things,she was grieved exceedingly,so that she thought about hanging herself.Then she said, “I am the only daughter of my father.If I do this, it will be a reproach to him,and I will bring down his old age with sorrow to the grave.”11Then she prayed by the window,and said, “Blessed are you,O Lord my God, and blessed is your holyand honorable name forever!Let all your works praise you forever!

· · · verses 12–15 are not read16The prayer of both was heard before the glory of the great God.17Raphael also was sent to heal them both,to scale away the white films from Tobit’s eyes,and to give Sarah the daughter of Raguel for a wife to Tobias the son of Tobit;and to bind Asmodaeus the evil spirit;because it belonged to Tobias that he should inherit her.At that very time,Tobit returned and entered into his house,and Sarah the daughter of Raguel came down from her upper chamber.

2My God, I have trusted in you.Don’t let me be shamed.Don’t let my enemies triumph over me.3Yes, no one who waits for you will be shamed.They will be shamed who deal treacherously without cause.

4Show me your ways, Lord.Teach me your paths.5Guide me in your truth, and teach me,for you are the God of my salvation.I wait for you all day long.

6Lord, remember your tender mercies and your loving kindness,for they are from old times.7Don’t remember the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions.Remember me according to your loving kindness,for your goodness’ sake, Lord.

8Good and upright is the Lord,therefore he will instruct sinners in the way.9He will guide the humble in justice.He will teach the humble his way.

18Some Sadducees, who saythat there is no resurrection, came to him.They asked him, saying,19“Teacher, Moses wrote to us,‘If a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife behind him,and leaves no children,that his brother should take his wifeand raise up offspring for his brother.’20There were seven brothers.The first took a wife, and dying left no offspring.21The second took her,and died, leaving no children behind him.The third likewise;22and the seven took her and left no children.Last of all the woman also died.23In the resurrection,when they rise, whose wife will she be of them?For the seven had her as a wife.”

24Jesus answered them,“Isn’t this because you are mistaken,not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God?25For when they will rise from the dead,they neither marry nor are given in marriage,but are like angels in heaven.26But about the dead,that they are raised,haven’t you read in the book of Moses about the Bush,how God spoke to him,saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham,the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’?27He is not the God of the dead, but of the living.You are therefore badly mistaken.”