Sarah Prays and God Sends Raphael

In Ecbatana of Media, Sarah, the daughter of Raguel, was cruelly reproached by her father’s maidservants. She had been given to seven husbands, but each of them had died before they had lain with her. The servants blamed Sarah for these deaths and spoke to her with harsh, unkind words.

Their words cut deeply. Sarah was so distressed that she thought about hanging herself. But she stopped, because she was her father’s only daughter and did not want to bring reproach on him or cause his old age to go down in sorrow to the grave.

So Sarah prayed by the window. First she blessed the Lord and his holy and honourable name. Then she turned her eyes and face toward God and asked to be released from the earth, so that she would hear reproach no more.

Sarah said that God knew she was pure from sin with man, and that she had not polluted her own name or her father’s name in the land of her captivity. She told the Lord that seven husbands had already died, and asked either to die or to be shown pity so the reproach would end.

God heard her prayer. The prayer of both sufferers was heard before the glory of the great God. Raphael was sent to heal them both: to scale away the white films from Tobit’s eyes, to give Sarah to Tobias son of Tobit as wife, and to bind Asmodaeus the evil spirit. At that very time, Tobit entered his house, and Sarah came down from her upper chamber.