2 Forsooth after these things, when a feast day of the Lord was, and a good meat (or meal) was made in the house of Tobit, he said to his son,
2 Go thou, and bring some men of our lineage, that dread God, (so) that they (can) eat with us.
3 And when he, young Tobias, was gone forth, (later) he (re)turned again, and told to his father, that one of the sons of Israel lay strangled in the street; and anon (or at once) Tobit rose up from his sitting place [or and anon starting out (or starting up) from his meat-seat], and left the meat (or the meal), and came fasting to the body;
4 and he took it, and bare it to his house privily, for to bury him warily [or slyly], when the sun was gone done.
5 And when he had hid the body, he ate bread with mourning and trembling,
6 and remembered the word, which the Lord said by Amos, the prophet, Your feast days shall be turned into mourning and lamentation, either wailing [or into wailing and sorrowing].
7 And when the sun was gone down, Tobit went, and buried him.
8 Forsooth all his neighbours blamed him, and said, Now for the cause of this thing thou were commanded to be slain, and scarcely thou hast escaped the behest of death, and again thou buriest dead men? [Forsooth all his neighbours reproved him, saying, Now because of this thing thou art commanded to be slain, and scarcely thou hast escaped the commandment of death, and again thou buriest the dead?]
9 But Tobit dreaded more God than the king, and he took away the bodies of slain men, and hid them in his house, and buried those in the middle of (the) nights. [But Tobit, more dreading God than the king, caught (hold of) the bodies of the slain, and hid in his house, and in the midnights he buried them.]
10 And it befelled, that in (or on) a day Tobit was made weary of (or from) burying dead bodies; and he came home, and laid himself beside a wall, and slept there; [It fell forsooth, that on a day weary of burying, coming home, he had cast himself (down) beside the wall, and had fast slept;]
11 and while he slept, hot turds, or drit, fell down from the nest of swallows upon his eyes; and he was made blind.
12 And therefore the Lord suffered (or allowed) this temptation to befall to him, (so) that the ensample of his patience should be given to (his) after-comers, as also it is of holy Job. [This forsooth temptation therefore the Lord suffered to come to him, that to the after-comers should example be given of his patience, as and of holy Job.]
13 For why when Tobit dreaded God (for)ever(more) from his young childhood, and kept his commandments, he was not sorry, or heavy, or grudging, (or grumbling) against God, for that the sickness of blindness came to him; [And when from his time that he began to speak, evermore he dreaded God, and kept his behests, he sorrowed not against God, that the vengeance of blindness came to him;]
14 but he dwelled unmoveable in the dread of God, and did thankings to God in all the days of his life. [but unmovable in the dread of God abode till, graces doing to God all the days of his life.]
15 For why as kings upbraided saint Job, or blessed Job, so it befelled to this Tobit, that his elders and kinsmen scorned his life, and said,
16 Where is thine hope[a], for which thou didest alms-deeds and buryings?
17 And Tobit blamed them, and said,
18 Do not ye speak so, for we be the sons of holy men, and we abide that life, which God shall give to them that change never their faith from him. [Doeth not so speak, for the sons of hallows we be, and that life we abide, that God is to give to them that their faith nevermore change from him.]
19 And Anna, his wife, went each day to the work of weaving, and she brought home the livelode, [or the lifelode], (or the livelihood) which she might get of (or from) the travail of her hands.
20 Whereof it befell, that she took (or received) a kid of goats, for her weaving, and she brought it home.
21 And when her husband had heard the voice of this kid bleating, he said, Look ye, lest peradventure this kid be gotten of (or from) theft [or lest peradventure it be stolen], but if it so be yieldeth it again (or back) to his lords; for it is not leaveful (or lawful), either to eat either to touch anything of theft.
22 At these words the wife of Tobit was wroth, and answered, Now is openly thine hope made vain, and thine alms-deeds have appeared, that is, feigned and void, as done for hypocrisy. [At these things his wife wroth answered, Openly vain is made thine hope, and thine alms-deed now have appeared.]
23 And by these and other such words she said shame to him. [And in these and in other such manner words she put reproof to him.]
Footnotes
- Tobit 2:16 These believed the rewarding of good and of evil is only in present life, as the friends of Job did.