King James Version · Under Assyria
Tobit 4
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1In that day remembered the money which he had committed to Gabael in Rages of , 2And said with himself, I have wished for ; wherefore do I not call for my son that I may signify to him of the money before I ? 3And when he had called him, he said, My son, when I am , bury me; and despise not thy mother, but her all the days of thy life, and do that which shall please her, and grieve her not. 4Remember, my son, that she saw many dangers for thee, when thou wast in her : and when she is , bury her by me in one . 5My son, be mindful of our all thy days, and let not thy will be set to , or to transgress his : do uprightly all thy life long, and follow not the ways of unrighteousness. 6For if thou deal truly, thy doings shall prosperously succeed to thee, and to all them that live justly. 7Give alms of thy substance; and when thou givest alms, let not thine eye be envious, neither turn thy from any , and the of shall not be turned away from thee. 8If thou hast abundance give alms accordingly: if thou have but a little, be not afraid to give according to that little: 9For thou layest up a good for thyself against the day of necessity. 10Because that alms do from , and suffereth not to come into . 11For alms is a good gift unto all that give it in the sight of . 12Beware of all whoredom, my son, and chiefly take a wife of the of thy fathers, and take not a strange woman to wife, which is not of thy ’s tribe: for we are the children of , , , , and : remember, my son, that our fathers , even that they all married wives of their own kindred, and were in their children, and their shall the land. 13Now therefore, my son, love thy brethren, and despise not in thy thy brethren, the sons and daughters of thy people, in not taking a wife of them: for in pride is and much trouble, and in lewdness is decay and great want: for lewdness is the mother of . 14Let not the wages of any man, which hath wrought for thee, tarry with thee, but give him it out of hand: for if thou , he will also repay thee: be circumspect my son, in all things thou doest, and be in all thy conversation. 15Do that to no man which thou hatest: drink not to make thee drunken: neither let drunkenness go with thee in thy journey. 16Give of thy bread to the hungry, and of thy garments to them that are ; and according to thine abundance give alms: and let not thine eye be envious, when thou givest alms. 17Pour out thy bread on the burial of the , but give nothing to . 18Ask of all that are , and despise not any that is profitable. 19 thy alway, and of him that thy ways may be directed, and that all thy and counsels may prosper: for every nation hath not ; but himself giveth all good things, and he humbleth whom he will, as he will; now therefore, my son, remember my , neither let them be put out of thy . 20And now I signify this to they that I committed ten to Gabael the son of Gabrias at Rages in . 21And fear not, my son, that we are made : for thou hast much wealth, if thou , and depart from all , and do that which is pleasing in his sight.
The 1611 translation, public domain. Its original printing included the Apocrypha, which is why the deuterocanonical books can be read here. Notes and cards are EKLI’s own.
The world at this moment · Under Assyria, 745 BC to 612 BC ›
Assyria at full stretch, deporting whole populations as policy. The northern kingdom is destroyed in 722 BC and Judah survives as a tribute-paying vassal.
- Assyria
- The first empire to run mass deportation as ordinary administration: move the leadership somewhere else, settle strangers in their place, and the province stops being a nation. It worked. Samaria fell in 722 BC and the northern tribes did not come back. Assyria also advertised its cruelty deliberately, carving flayings and impalements on palace walls where envoys would see them, because terror is cheaper than garrisons.
- Judah
- Survives by paying. Hezekiah rebels, Sennacherib takes forty-six Judean towns and besieges Jerusalem in 701 BC, and the city holds. The Assyrian account boasts of shutting Hezekiah up like a bird in a cage and pointedly does not claim to have taken the city, which is one of the more interesting silences in ancient records.
- Egypt
- The splintered reed of a staff that Assyria's field commander mocks Judah for leaning on. It promises help and cannot deliver, and Isaiah spends decades saying so. Assyria eventually invades and sacks Thebes.
- Further afield
- Greece is in its archaic period, founding colonies from Spain to the Black Sea. Rome is under kings. Assyria's own libraries are collecting the literature of Mesopotamia, which is how Gilgamesh survived to be read again in the nineteenth century.