Good News [1976], GOOD NEWS BIBLE WITH DEUTEROCANONICALS / APOCRYPHA Today's English Version (AMERICAN BIBLE SOCIETY, New York) [word count] [B15000].
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A Family Celebration
1 When I returned home I was reunited
with my wife Anna and
my son Tobias. At the Harvest Festival,
which is also called the Festival
of Weeks, I sat down to a delicious
meal. note
2 When I saw how much food
there was on the table, I said to Tobias,
“Son, go out and find some fellow
Jew who is living in poverty
here in exile, someone who takes
God's commands seriously. Bring
him back with you, so that he can
share this festival meal with us. I
won't start eating until you come
back.”
A Murder in Nineveh
3 So Tobias went out to look for
such a person. But he quickly returned,
shouting, “Father! Father!”
3 “Yes, what is it?” I asked.
3 “One of our people has just been
murdered! Someone strangled him
and threw his body into the market-place.”
4 I jumped up and left the table
without even touching my food. I removed
the body from the street and
carried it to a little shed, where I left
it until sunset, when I could bury it.
5 Then I returned home and washed,
so as to purify myself. In deep sorrow
I ate my dinner. note
6 I was reminded
of what the prophet Amos
had said to the people of Bethel,
“Your festivals will be turned into funerals,
and your glad songs will become cries of grief.”
I began to weep. note
7 After sunset I went out, dug a
grave, and buried the man.
8 My
neighbors thought I was crazy.
“Haven't you learned anything?”
they asked. “You have already been
hunted down once for burying the
dead, and you would have been
killed if you had not run away. But
here you are doing the same thing all
over again.”
Tobit Is Blinded
9 That night I washed, so as to purify
myself, and went out into my
courtyard to sleep by the wall. It
was a hot night, and I did not pull
the cover up over my head.
10 Sparrows
were on the wall right above
me, but I did not know it. Their
warm droppings fell into my eyes,
causing a white film to form on
-- --
them. I went to one doctor after another,
but the more they treated me
with their medicines, the worse my
eyes became, until finally I was completely
blind.
10 For four years I could see nothing.
My relatives were deeply concerned
about my condition, and Ahikar supported
me for two years before he
went to the land of Elam.
A Family Quarrel
11 After Ahikar left, my wife Anna
had to go to work, so she took up
weaving, like many other women.
12 The people she worked for would
pay her when she delivered the
cloth. One spring day, she cut a finished
piece of cloth from the loom
and took it to the people who had
ordered it. They paid her the full
price and also gave her a goat.
13 When Anna came home with the
goat, it began to bleat. I called out,
“Where did that goat come from?
You stole it, didn't you? Take it
straight back to its owners. It's not
right to eat stolen food!”
14 “No!” she replied. “It was given
to me as a gift in addition to what I
got for the cloth.” But I didn't believe
her, and I blushed for shame
for what she had done. I ordered her
to return the goat to its owners, but
she had the last word. “Now I see
what you are really like!” she
shouted. “Where is all that concern
of yours for others? What about all
those good deeds you used to do?”
Good News [1976], GOOD NEWS BIBLE WITH DEUTEROCANONICALS / APOCRYPHA Today's English Version (AMERICAN BIBLE SOCIETY, New York) [word count] [B15000].
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