The book of Tobit



The Book of Tobit is a book of scripture that is considered canon by Catholics & Orthodox Christians but is considered to be Apocrypha by most Protestants & those of the Jewish Faith. The Book is a story of Wisdom & Healing that focuses on an honorable man named Tobit and his son, Tobias. The book of Tobit also can be found at Bible KJV at VB full version which you can read in digital. But I personally prefer printed. 

It’s containing 14 chapter & 244 verses.
The author’s wrote the story of two families living in the Diaspora during the time of the Assyrian Exile. After a brief introduction, the narrative begins with Tobit (tribe of Nephthali), the head of one of the families, speaking in the first person. Tobit describes his upright behavior and adherence to the Moses Law, noting how he married a woman from his own tribe, Anna, and fathered a son with her, Tobias (1:3-11). Although a foreigner, Tobit receives a position in the court of the Assyrian King Enemessar and earns enough money to deposit ten talents of silver with his relative Gabael, the brother of Gabrias in Rages city of Media.  In the time of King Enemessar reign Tobit gave many alms to his brethren and gave bread to the hungry, clothes to the naked, buried his nation dead that cast about the walls of Nineve. But when King Enemessar was dead, Sennacherib his son reigned in his stead; whole estate was troubled and Tobit could not go into Media. Tobit's virtuous acts get him into trouble as the Assyrian king discovers that Tobit has been burying the Israelites that Sennacherib had executed. Tobit loses his position and property and immediately goes into hiding (1:12-20).

After a new king ascends (King Sarchedonus (King Sennacherib son) the throne. Tobit is able to return home and live with his wife and son again. Before long, his gracious deeds on behalf of his countrymen bring him misfortune once again. While celebrating a Pentecost meal with his family, Tobit learns that the body of a fellow Israelite is lying unburied in the street, and Tobit quickly leaves his house to find the corpse and bury it after sunset (2:1-5). Because he has touched a corpse, Tobit decides to spend the night outside, and while he lies against a wall in his courtyard, sparrow muted warm dung into his eyes and eventually blind him (2:9-10). Tobit's loss of vision has significant consequences for his family. First, Tobit's inability to work forces his wife Anna to become the breadwinner for the family. Second, Tobit's melancholy disposition, resulting from his blindness, taunts from his neighbors, and his wife's upbraiding, drive him to beseech the Lord to take his life (2:11-3:6). At the same day in Ecbatane city of Media, Sara the daughter of Raguel also reproached by her father’s maid. Because she had married to seven husband but have no heir, whom Asmodeus the evil spirit had killed before they had lain with her. When she heard these things, she was very sorrowful and thought to strangled herself. But she remember her father, if she left him by doing this it’s will bring reproach unto him and sorrow unto the grave. Then Sara seek guidance and pray to God (3:7-15)

Prologue
So the prayer of both Tobit & Sara were heard before the majesty of the great God. And Raphael the angel was sent to heal them both, that is, to scale away the whiteness of Tobit’s eyes, and to give Sara the daughter of Raguel for a wife to Tobias the son of Tobit; and to bind Asmodeus the devil spirit; because she belong to Tobias by right of inheritance (3:16-17)

Finally, Tobit's expectation that his death is imminent leads him to send his son on a distant journey to retrieve the money he left with their relative Gabael. After finding a suitable travel guide in Raphael, an angel disguising himself as their kinsman Azarias, Tobias embarks for Rages to bring home the money (4:1-3; 5:1-8; 6:2).

Shortly after the traveling party leaves Nineveh, the angel directs the young man to the house of Raguel in Ecbatana instead. Raguel and his wife Edna have an only daughter, Sarah, whom the angel exhorts Tobias  to marry. The angel offers numerous reasons to persuade Tobias to do so, and despite the fact that Sarah's seven previous husbands have all died the day they married her, Tobias falls in love with her and resolves to take her as his bride (6:11-18). When the travelers reach the house of Raguel, they are received with a cordial feast and reveal that they are Raguel's relatives by his kinsmen Tobit. Soon, Tobias insists that Raguel give his daughter to him as a wife, and after some initial hesitation, Raguel complies. He writes a marriage contract for the new couple, and the newlyweds go to bed that night (7:1-13). Taking the advice of the angel Raphael, Tobias uses two fish organs to ward off the demon Asmodeus, who had killed Sarah's previous husbands, and for the first time in her life, Sarah has a husband who survives the wedding night (8:2-3).
Raguel and Edna celebrate the new marriage with a fourteen-day wedding feast, at the end of which Tobias and Sarah depart for Nineveh (8:19-21; 10:7-11:1). Meanwhile, Tobit and Anna have been worried about their son since he has taken so long to return home, and they are overjoyed when he finally appears. Taking the angel's advice again, Tobias uses another fish organ to cure his father's blindness, and the family celebrates the safe return and recent marriage of their son with another wedding feast (11:1-18). Tobit and Tobias then prepare to present Raphael with a large sum in reward for his services, but the angel surprises both of them by revealing his true identity and then ascends heavenward (12:1-22).

..Bless God, praise him, magnify him, and praise him for the things which he hath done unto you in the sight of all that live. It is good to praise God, and exalt his name, and honourably to shew forth the works of God; therefore be not slack to praise him. It is good to keep close the secret of a king, but it is honourable to reveal the works of God. Do that which is good, and no evil shall touch you. Prayer is good with fasting and alms and righteousness. A little with righteousness is better than much with unrighteousness. It is better to give alms than to lay up gold: For alms doth deliver from death, and shall purge away all sin. Those that exercise alms and righteousness shall be fill with life: But they that sin are enemies to their own life….(12:6-10)

The book ends with a hymn of praise by Tobit (13:1-18) and admonition for his son and grandsons. Tobit makes sure to instruct his son to take his family into Media since Nineveh will soon fall, and Tobias obeys. Tobias buries his parents after they have died and does the same for the parents of Sara. He lives to the venerable age of 117, witnessing the destruction of the Assyrian capital before he expires (14:1-15).


Moral of the story:
1.    Love LORD thy God with all thy heart, with all thy mind, with all thine soul, and with all thy might.
2.    Honor your father and your mother.
3.    Do not remove your neighbor’s boundary mark, which was set up by your ancestor to mark the inheritance you shall receive in the land the LORD your God is giving you to possess. (Thou shall not desire thy neighbor wife, neither shall thou covet thy neighbor’s house, his field, or his manservant, his maidservant, his ox, or his ass, or anything that belong to thy neighbor)
4.    Be gratitude in everything.
5.    Love your neighbors as the LORD thy God has love thee.
6.    Do not bear false witness against thy neighbor.
7.    Do not commit adultery.
8.    Trust everything to God; He is thy shield and savior. Draw nigh to him and he will draw nigh to thee.
9.    Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church—for we are members of his body. (Eph. 5:22-30)