2 Then during the reign of Esar-haddona I returned home, and my wife Anna and my son Tobias were restored to me. At our festival of Pentecost, which is the sacred festival of weeks, a good dinner was prepared for me and I reclined to eat. 2 When the table was set for me and an abundance of food placed before me, I said to my son Tobias, “Go, my child, and bring whatever poor person you may find of our people among the exiles in Nineveh, who is wholeheartedly mindful of God,b and he shall eat together with me. I will wait for you, until you come back.” 3 So Tobias went to look for some poor person of our people. When he had returned he said, “Father!” And I replied, “Here I am, my child.” Then he went on to say, “Look, father, one of our own people has been murdered and thrown into the market place, and now he lies there strangled.” 4 Then I sprang up, left the dinner before even tasting it, and removed the bodyc from the squared and laid ite in one of the rooms until sunset when I might bury it.f 5 When I returned, I washed myself and ate my food in sorrow. 6 Then I remembered the prophecy of Amos, how he said against Bethel,g

“Your festivals shall be turned into mourning,

and all your songs into lamentation.”

And I wept.