Drafted by Grok 4.7 on 8 October 2026. First draft. Not independently reviewed. Aramaic and Hebrew where a Qumran copy can be read (4Q196–4Q200), and otherwise the longer Greek of Codex Sinaiticus. The shorter Greek in Swete is not the base. Gaps in Sinaiticus are not filled from a later edition.
1I was crushed in my spirit. I groaned, I wept, and I began to pray with groaning.
2“You are just, Lord, and all your works are just. All your ways are mercy and truth. You judge the age.
3And now, Lord, remember me and look at me. Do not take vengeance on me for my sins, or for my ignorant acts, or for those of my fathers, who sinned before you.
4They disobeyed your commands, and you handed us over to plunder, captivity, and death, and to being a byword, a thing people talk about, and a disgrace among all the nations where you scattered us.
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The verb “disobeyed” is written twice in Sinaiticus, once in a form that does not fit the sentence. It is printed once.
5And now your many judgments are true. Deal with me as my sins and my fathers’ sins deserve, because we did not keep your commands and we did not walk truly before you.
6And now, do with me whatever pleases you. Command that my spirit be taken from me, so that I am released from the face of the earth and become earth. It is better for me to die than to live, because I have heard false insults, and a great grief is with me. Lord, command that I be released from this distress. Release me to the everlasting place, and do not turn your face away from me. It is better for me to die than to see such distress in my life and keep hearing insults.”
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A damaged Hebrew fragment, 4Q200 fragment 1, column i, preserves pieces of this prayer: words for living, for false insults heard, for great grief, for being released, and for a face not being hidden. The pieces agree with the Greek in substance. They are too broken to replace the whole prayer. Restored letters in that transcription are not printed.
7On that same day Sarah, the daughter of Raguel, in Ecbatana of Media, also heard insults from one of her father’s young women.
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The Greek name is Raguel. The Hebrew copy 4Q200 writes Reuel (רעואל) in a later scene. They are the same man. This verse follows the Greek spelling. The Hebrew spelling is used where that copy is the base.
8She had been given to seven husbands, and Asmodeus, the evil demon, kept killing them before they could be with her as is appointed for wives. The young woman said to her, “You are the one who kills your husbands. You have already been given to seven husbands, and you have not taken the name of one of them.
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The demon’s name is damaged the first time Sinaiticus writes it. Later in the book the spelling is Asmodeus. That later spelling is printed. The Aramaic form of the name was not readable in the fragments checked for this draft, so it is not substituted.
9Why do you beat us over your husbands, because they died? Go with them. May we never see a son or daughter of yours.”
10That day she was wounded in her spirit and she wept. She went up to her father’s upper room and wanted to hang herself. Then she thought again, and said, “They might insult my father and say to him, ‘You had one beloved daughter, and she hanged herself because of her troubles,’ and I would bring my father’s old age down to the grave in grief. It is better for me not to hang myself, but to ask the Lord that I may die, and that I may not hear insults anymore in my life.”
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4Q200 fragment 1, column ii, preserves broken lines of this scene: insulting her father, an only daughter, that it was not right to hang herself, that she would not hear and her father would not hear, the window, and her prayer. The Greek is continuous and is the printed line. The Hebrew agrees where it can be read. It does not add a sentence the Greek lacks.
11At that moment she spread her hands toward the window and prayed. She said, “Blessed are you, merciful God, and blessed is your name forever. May all your works bless you forever.
12And now I have lifted my face and my eyes toward you.
13Speak the word for me to be released from the earth, and command that I no longer hear insults.
14You know, Master, that I am clean of any defilement with a man.
15I have not stained my name, or my father’s name, in the land of my captivity. I am my father’s only child. He has no other child to inherit from him, no near brother, no relative for whom I should keep myself as a wife. Seven husbands are already lost to me. Why should I go on living? If it does not seem good to you to kill me, then at least hear my insult now.”
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The Greek of the family clause is tangled: she speaks of keeping herself for a relative who does not exist. The English follows that sense. A couple of repeated words in the manuscript are printed once.
16At that same moment the prayer of both of them was heard before the glory of God.
17Raphael was sent to heal the two of them: to take the white films off Tobit’s eyes so that he would see God’s light with his own eyes, and to give Sarah, Raguel’s daughter, to Tobias son of Tobit as his wife, and to free her from Asmodeus the evil demon. Tobias had the right to inherit her ahead of everyone else who wanted to take her. At that time Tobit came back from the courtyard into his house, and Sarah, Raguel’s daughter, came down from the upper room.