Tobit’s Prayer of Confession

Tobit 3:1–6

3rd–1st Century BCE

About This Entry

One of the many prayers in the book of Tobit occurs after an argument between Tobit and his wife, Anna. Having been blinded when a bird’s droppings fell on his eyes, Tobit becomes dependent on his wife’s income from weaving. When Tobit questions Anna’s right to a goat that one of her clients has given her, she responds by asking what his acts of charity have done for him. Despondent, Tobit prays for death, employing much penitential rhetoric.

1Then with much grief and anguish of heart I wept, and with groaning began to pray:

2“You are righteous, O Lord,
and all your deeds are just;
all your ways are mercy and truth;
you judge the world.
3And now, O Lord, remember me
and look favorably upon me.
Do not punish me for my sins
and for my unwitting offenses
and those that my ancestors committed before you.
They sinned against you,
4and disobeyed your commandments.
So you gave us over to plunder, exile, and death,
to become the talk, the byword, and an object of reproach
among all the nations among whom you have dispersed us.
5And now your many judgments are true
in exacting penalty from me for my sins.
For we have not kept your commandments
and have not walked in accordance with truth before you.
6So now deal with me as you will,
command my spirit to be taken from me,
so that I might be released from the face of the earth and become dust.
For it is better for me to die than to live,
because I have had to listen to undeserved insults,
and great is the sorrow within me.
Command, O Lord, that I be released from this distress;
release me to go to the eternal home,
and do not, O Lord, turn your face away from me.
For it is better for me to die
than to see so much distress in my life
and to listen to insults.”

Translation from the New Revised Standard Version.

Credits

New Revised Standard Version Bible copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 2: Emerging Judaism.

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One of the many prayers in the book of Tobit occurs after an argument between Tobit and his wife, Anna. Having been blinded when a bird’s droppings fell on his eyes, Tobit becomes dependent on his wife’s income from weaving. When Tobit questions Anna’s right to a goat that one of her clients has given her, she responds by asking what his acts of charity have done for him. Despondent, Tobit prays for death, employing much penitential rhetoric.

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