6 I would often go by myself to Jerusalem on religious holidays, as the Law commanded for every Israelite for all time. I would hurry off to Jerusalem and take with me the early produce of my crops, a tenth of my flocks, and the first portion of the wool cut from my sheep.
7 I would present these things at the altar to the priests, the descendants of Aaron. I would give the first tenth of my grain, wine, olive oil, pomegranates, figs, and other fruit to the Levites who served in Jerusalem. For six out of seven years, I also brought the cash equivalent of the second tenth of these crops to Jerusalem where I would spend it every year.
8 I gave this to orphans and widows, and to Gentiles who had joined Israel. In the third year, when I brought and gave it to them, we would eat together according to the instruction recorded in Moses’ Law, as Deborah my grandmother had taught me (for my father had died and left me an orphan).
9 When I became an adult, I married a woman from our clan. Together we had a son, whom I named Tobias.
10 After I was taken captive to Assyria and came to Nineveh, all my relatives and fellow Jews there were eating Gentile food.
11 I, however, avoided eating the Gentiles’ food.
12 Because I kept God in view with all my heart,