2-3 My hometown is Thisbe in Galilee. Thisbe is south of the town of Kedesh in Naphtali, and it is northwest of Hazor and north of Phogor. But when Shalmaneser was king of Assyria, I was one of many Jews who were captured by the Assyrian army and taken to Nineveh in Assyria.All my life, I have been honest and done what is right. And even after we were brought here to Nineveh, I still gave help to my relatives and other Jews, whenever they were in need.
4 When I was a young man in Israel, my tribe had already rejected the descendants of David as their kings. In fact, the people of Naphtali never went to Jerusalem to worship, even though that is where God's sacred temple had been built. The temple will be God's home forever, and so God said the tribes of Israel must go there to offer sacrifices to him.
5 But my relatives and everyone else in my tribe went to the town of Dan and offered sacrifices to the idol that King Jeroboam had made in the shape of a calf. They also worshiped on hilltops all over Galilee.
6 I was the only one who went to Jerusalem for the festivals, just as God's unchanging command says to do. I would hurry to Jerusalem with my sacrifices and offerings, whether they were the first part of the harvest, the first-born of a sheep, the tenth of my livestock, or the first wool from my sheep.
7 I would always take these offerings to the temple and give them to the priests at the altar. And I would always bring to Jerusalem the tenth of my grain, wine, olive oil, pomegranates, figs, and other kinds of fruit, and I would give this tenth to the Levites who served in the temple. Also, for six years out of seven, I would sell a second tenth of my harvest and take the money to Jerusalem and spend it there on a celebration.
8 When I was young, my father died and left me as an orphan. So it was my grandmother Deborah who told me to be careful and obey what the Law of Moses commanded about taking care of orphans and widows and of those who had come from other countries to become part of Israel. That's why every third year, I would set aside a third tenth of my harvest and use part of it to hold a festival for them. Then I would give them the rest.
9 When I was old enough, I married a woman from my own tribe, and we had a son. I named him Tobias.