Part 506

1:19. Tobias daily went among all his kindred and comforted them, and distributed to every one as he was able, out of his goods:

1:20. He fed the hungry, and gave clothes to the naked, and was careful to bury the dead, and they that were slain.

1:21. And when king Sennacherib was come back, fleeing from Judea by reason of the slaughter that God had made about him for his blasphemy, and being angry slew many of the children of Israel, Tobias buried their bodies.

1:22. But when it was told the king, he commanded him to be slain, and took away all his substance.

1:23. But Tobias fleeing naked away with his son and with his wife, lay concealed, for many loved him.

1:24. But after forty-five days, the king was killed by his own sons.

1:25. And Tobias returned to his house, and all his substance was restored to him.

Tobias Chapter 2

Tobias leaveth his dinner to bury the dead: he loseth his sight by God’s permission, for manifestation of his patience.

2:1. But after this, when there was a festival of the Lord, and a good dinner was prepared in Tobias’s house,

2:2. He said to his son: Go, and bring some of our tribe that fear God, to feast with us.

2:3. And when he had gone, returning he told him, that one of the children of Israel lay slain in the street. And he forthwith leaped up from his place at the table, and left his dinner, and came fasting to the body.

2:4. And taking it up carried it privately to his house, that after the sun was down, he might bury him cautiously.

2:5. And when he had hid the body, he ate bread with mourning and fear,

2:6. Remembering the word which the Lord spoke by Amos the prophet: Your festival days shall be turned into lamentation and mourning.

2:7. So when the sun was down, he went and buried him.

2:8. Now all his neighbours blamed him, saying: once already commandment was given for thee to be slain because of this matter, and thou didst scarce escape the sentence of death, and dost thou again bury the dead?

2:9. But Tobias fearing God more than the king, carried off the bodies of them that were slain, and hid them in his house, and at midnight buried them.

2:10. Now it happened one day that being wearied with burying, he came to his house, and cast himself down by the wall and slept,

2:11. And as he was sleeping, hot dung out of a swallow’s nest fell upon his eyes, and he was made blind.

2:12. Now this trial the Lord therefore permitted to happen to him, that an example might be given to posterity of his patience, as also of holy Job.

2:13. For whereas he had always feared God from his infancy, and kept his commandments, he repined not against God because the evil of blindness had befallen him,

2:14. But continued immoveable in the fear of God, giving thanks to God all the days of his life.

2:15. For as the kings insulted over holy Job: so his relations and kinsmen mocked at his life, saying:

Kings.... So Job’s three friends are here called, because they were princes in their respective territories.

2:16. Where is thy hope, for which thou gavest alms, and buriedst the dead?

2:17. But Tobias rebuked them, saying: Speak not so:

2:18. For we are the children of saints, and look for that life which God will give to those that never change their faith from him.