1When I had come back down to my own house and my wife Anna and my son Tobias were given back to me, at Pentecost — the holy festival of the seven weeks — a fine meal was set for me, and I reclined to eat. 2I looked at the many dishes and said to my son: “Go out and bring back whoever you can find among our kinsmen who is in want and keeps the Lord in mind. I will wait here for you.” 3He came back and said: “Father, one of our own people has been strangled and left lying in the market square.” 4Before I had tasted anything I leapt up, carried him away from there into a shed, and waited for the sun to go down. 5Then I came back, washed myself, and ate my bread in sorrow, 6and I remembered the prophecy of Amos, how he said: “Your festivals will turn into mourning, and all your rejoicing into a dirge.” And I wept. 7When the sun had set I went out, dug a grave, and buried him. 8My neighbors laughed at me: “He is still not afraid of being put to death over this business! He ran for his life once, and look — here he is burying the dead again.”
The Sparrows and the Blindness
9That same night I came back from the burial and lay down beside the courtyard wall, unclean, with my face uncovered. 10I did not know there were sparrows in that wall. My eyes were open, and the sparrows dropped their warm dung into them, and white films formed over my eyes. I went to the doctors, and they were no help to me. Ahikar provided for me until he left for Elymais. 11My wife Anna hired herself out at the work women do, 12and she would send the pieces to those who had ordered them, and they paid her wage; once they threw in a young goat as well. 13When she came to me the animal started bleating, and I said to her: “Where does the kid come from? It is not stolen, is it? Give it back to its owners. We have no right to eat anything stolen.” 14She said: “It was given to me as a present, over and above my wage.” I did not believe her, and I kept telling her to give it back to its owners, and the blood rose in my face before her. But she answered me: “And where are your alms now, where are your righteous deeds? Look at you — it is all plain to see.”
