and rendering thankings to God all the days of his life.  For like as Job was assailed so was Tobit assailed of his kinsmen, scorning him and saying to him:  Where is now thy hope and reward for which thou gavest thy alms and madest sepulchres?  Tobit blamed them for such words, saying to them:  In no wise say ye not so, for we be the sons of holy men, and we abide that life that God shall give to them that never shall change their faith from him.  Anna his wife went daily to the work of weaving, and got by the labor of her hands their livelihood as much as she might.  Whereof on a day she gat a kid and brought it home.  When Tobit heard the voice of the kid bleating, he said:  See that it be not stolen, yield it again to the owner, for it is not lawful for us to eat ne touch anything that is stolen.  To that his wife all angry answered:  Now manifestly and openly is thine hope made vain, and thy alms lost.  And thus with such and like words she chid him.  Then Tobit began to sigh and began to pray our Lord with tears saying:  O Lord, thou art rightful, and all thy dooms be true, and all thy ways be mercy, truth, and righteousness.  And now, Lord, remember me, and take now no vengeance of my sins, ne remember not my trespasses, ne the sins of my fathers.  For’we have not obeyed thy commandments, therefore we be betaken in to direption, captivity, death, fables, and into reproof and shame to all nations in which thou hast dispersed us.  And now, Lord, great be thy judgments, for we have not done according to thy precepts, ne have not walked well tofore thee.  And now, Lord, do to me after thy will, and command my spirit to be received in peace, it is more expedient to me to die than to live.

The same day it happed that Sara, daughter of Raguel in the city of Medes, that she was rebuked and heard reproof of one of the handmaidens of her father.  For she had been given to seven men, and a devil named Asmodeus slew them as soon as they would have gone to her; therefore the maid reproved her saying:  We shall never see son ne daughter of thee on the earth, thou slayer of thy husbands.  Wilt thou slay me as thou hast slain seven men?  With this voice and rebuke she went up in the upperest cubicle of the house.  And three days and three nights she ate not, ne drank not, but was continually in prayers beseeching God for to deliver her from this reproof and shame.  And on the third day, when she had accomplished her prayer, blessing our Lord she said:  Blessed be thy name, God of our fathers, for when thou art wroth thou shalt do mercy and in a time of tribulation thou forgivest sins to them that call to thee.  Unto thee, Lord, I convert my visage, and unto thee I address mine eyes.  I ask and require thee that thou assoil me from the bond of the reproof and shame, or certainly upon the earth keep me.  Thou knowest well, Lord, that I never desired man, but I have kept clean my soul.  I never meddled me with players, ne never had part of them that walk