9
When I grew up, I married Anna, a member of my own tribe. We had a son and named him Tobias.
10
Later, I was taken captive and deported to Assyria, and that is how I came to live in Nineveh. While we lived in Nineveh, all my relatives and the other Jews used to eat the same kind of food as the other people who lived there,
11
but I refused to do so.
12
Since I took seriously the commands of the Most High God,
13
he made Emperor Shalmaneser respect me, and I was placed in charge of purchasing all the emperor's supplies.
14
Before the emperor died, I made regular trips to the land of Media to buy things for him there. Once, when I was in the city of Rages in Media, I left some bags of money there with Gabael, Gabrias' brother, and asked him to keep them for me. There were more than 600 pounds of silver coins in those bags.
15
When Shalmaneser died, his son Sennacherib succeeded him as emperor. It soon became so dangerous to travel on the roads in Media that I could no longer go there.
16
While Shalmaneser was still emperor, I took good care of my own people whenever they were in need.
17
If they were hungry, I shared my food with them; if they needed clothes, I gave them some of my own. Whenever I saw that the dead body of one of my people had been thrown outside the city wall, I gave it a decent burial.
1
18
One day Sennacherib cursed God, the King of Heaven; God punished him, and Sennacherib had to retreat from Judah. On his way back to Media he was so furious that he killed many Israelites. But I secretly removed the bodies and buried them; and when Sennacherib later searched for the bodies, he could not find them.
19
Then someone from Nineveh told the emperor that I was the one who had been burying his victims. As soon as I realized that the emperor knew all about me and that my life was in danger, I became frightened. So I ran away and hid.