1 Then sad at heart, I groaned and wept aloud. With sobs I began to pray:
2 “You are righteous, Lord,and all your deeds are just;All your ways are mercy and fidelity;you are judge of the world.
3 And now, Lord, be mindful of meand look with favor upon me.Do not punish me for my sins,or for my inadvertent offenses,or for those of my ancestors.“They sinned against you,
4 and disobeyed your commandments.So you handed us over to plunder, captivity, and death,to become an object lesson, a byword, and a reproachin all the nations among whom you scattered us.
5 “Yes, your many judgments are rightin dealing with me as my sins,and those of my ancestors, deserve.For we have neither kept your commandments,nor walked in fidelity before you.
6 “So now, deal with me as you please;command my life breath to be taken from me,that I may depart from the face of the earth and become dust.It is better for me to die than to live,because I have listened to undeserved reproaches,and great is the grief within me.“Lord, command that I be released from such anguish;let me go to my everlasting abode;Do not turn your face away from me, Lord.For it is better for me to diethan to endure so much misery in life,and to listen to such reproaches!”
7 On that very day, at Ecbatana in Media, it so happened that Raguel’s daughter Sarah also had to listen to reproaches from one of her father’s maids.