1 And I was much grieved in my soul and groaned and wept. 2 And I began to pray with groanings: O Lord, thou art righteous, and all thy works are righteous, and all thy ways are mercy and truth: thou judgest the world. 3 And now, O Lord, remember thou me, and look upon me; and take not vengeance on me for my sins, both for mine ignorances and my fathers’. 4 They sinned against thee and disobeyed thy commandments, and thou gavest us for spoil and captivity, and death, and for a proverb and a by-word and a reproach among all the nations among whom thou didst disperse us. 5 And now thy many judgments are true in exacting from me the penalty of my sins, because we did not keep thy commandments and walked not truly before thee. 6 And now deal with me according to thy pleasure, and command my spirit to be taken from me, that I may be released from off the earth and become earth: for it is more profitable for me to die than to live, because I have heard false reproaches, and there is much sorrow in me. Lord, command that I be released from this distress, let me go to the everlasting place, and turn not thy face, O Lord, away from me. For it is more profitable for me to die, than to see much distress in my life, and not to hear reproaches.

B. Sarah’s Previous History, vv. 7–15.