Knox Bible

1

And now, thinking that his prayer for death was to be granted, the elder Tobias called his son to him

2

and gave him a charge; Let these rules of mine, said he, be the frame-work of thy life, my son.

3

When God takes my soul to himself, give this body of mine burial, and give thy mother her due✻ while her life lasts;

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do not forget what hazard she underwent to bear thee in her womb;

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and when she, too, has lived out her allotted span of years, bury her at my side.

6

And do thou, while thou hast life, think ever upon God, nor lend thyself to any sinful design, nor leave the commandments of the Lord our God unfulfilled.

7

Use thy wealth in giving of alms; never turn thy back on any man who is in need, and the Lord, in thy own need, will have eyes for thee.

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Shew to others what kindness thy means allow,

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giving much, if much is thine, if thou hast little, cheerfully sharing that little.

10

To do this is but to lay up a store against the day of distress;

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alms-deeds were ever a sovereign way of escape from guilt and death, a bar against the soul’s passage into darkness;

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none has less to fear when he stands before the most high God than he who does them.

13

Keep clear, my son, of fornication; save for thy wife, never let woman’s name be linked with thine.

14

In thought and word of thine, pride must never bear rule; thence it was all our undoing came.

15

There and then pay thy workman his wages; do not let the hire he has earned remain in thy keeping;

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never use another as thou wert loth thyself to be used.

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Share thy bread with the hungry and the poor; in thy garments let the naked go clad.

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Bestow thy meat and thy drink upon a just man’s burying, never share them with sinners.✻

19

Still take a wise man’s counsel over thy doings;

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but praise God all the while, and ask him to guide thy paths aright; let all thy designs repose in him.

21

This too I would have thee know, my son, that long since, when thou wert but a child, I lent ten talents of silver to a citizen of Rages in Media, called Gabelus, and I have his bond still.

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Do thou find means to reach his home, and so recover from him the sum I speak of, in return for his bond.

23

Never lose heart, my son, though we lead, thou and I, the life poor men lead. Fear we but God, shun guilt, and do the good we can, blessings shall be ours in abundance.✻