3 I, Tobit, have walked all the days of my life on the paths of truth and righteousness. I performed many charitable works for my kinsmen and my people who had been deported with me to Nineveh, in Assyria.
2:1 Thus under King Esarhaddon I returned to my home, and my wife Anna and my son Tobiah were restored to me. Then on our festival of Pentecost, the feast of Weeks, a fine dinner was prepared for me, and I reclined to eat.
2 The table was set for me, and when many different dishes were placed before me, I said to my son Tobiah: “My son, go out and try to find a poor man from among our kinsmen exiled here in Nineveh. If he is a sincere worshiper of God, bring him back with you, so that he can share this meal with me. Indeed, son, I shall wait for you to come back.”
3 Tobiah went out to look for some poor kinsman of ours. When he returned he exclaimed, “Father!” I said to him, “What is it, son?” He answered, “Father, one of our people has been murdered! His body lies in the market place where he was just strangled!”
4 I sprang to my feet, leaving the dinner untouched; and I carried the dead man from the street and put him in one of the rooms, so that I might bury him after sunset.
5 Returning to my own quarters, I washed myself and ate my food in sorrow.
6 I was reminded of the oracle pronounced by the prophet Amos against Bethel: “Your festivals shall be turned into mourning, And all your songs into lamentation.”
7 And I wept. Then at sunset I went out, dug a grave, and buried him.
8 The neighbors mocked me, saying to one another: “Will this man never learn! Once before he was hunted down for execution because of this very thing; yet now that he has escaped, here he is again burying the dead!”
1 Hallelujah! Happy are those who fear the LORD, who greatly delight in God’s commands.
2 Their descendants shall be mighty in the land, generation upright and blessed.
3 Wealth and riches shall be in their homes; their prosperity shall endure forever.
4 They shine through the darkness, a light for the upright; they are gracious, merciful, and just.
5 All goes well for those gracious in lending, who conduct their affairs with justice.
6 They shall never be shaken; the just shall be remembered forever.
1 He began to speak to them in parables. “A man planted a vineyard, put a hedge around it, dug a wine press, and built a tower. Then he leased it to tenant farmers and left on a journey.
2 At the proper time he sent a servant to the tenants to obtain from them some of the produce of the vineyard.
3 But they seized him, beat him, and sent him away empty-handed.
4 Again he sent them another servant. And that one they beat over the head and treated shamefully.
5 He sent yet another whom they killed. So, too, many others; some they beat, others they killed.
6 He had one other to send, a beloved son. He sent him to them last of all, thinking, ‘They will respect my son.’
7 But those tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’
8 So they seized him and killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard.
9 What (then) will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come, put the tenants to death, and give the vineyard to others.
10 Have you not read this scripture passage: ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone;
11 by the Lord has this been done, and it is wonderful in our eyes’?”
12 They were seeking to arrest him, but they feared the crowd, for they realized that he had addressed the parable to them. So they left him and went away.