When it is said
In the Book of Tobit, Tobias prays it with his bride Sarah on their wedding night, and she answers “Amen”.
Russian Orthodox prayer books print it as the prayer of newlyweds. A couple can say it together at the start of their married life.
Someone still hoping to marry can pray it too, as a picture of the marriage they ask God for.
Where it comes from
No author known
Seven bridegrooms
Sarah had been married seven times. Each husband died on the wedding night, killed by Asmodeus, an evil spirit, and her father’s maids taunted her for it. Sarah prayed to God in her sorrow. Far away in Nineveh, blind Tobit prayed too. God heard them both. He sent the angel Raphael to heal Tobit, and to give Sarah to Tobias, Tobit’s son, as his wife.
Tobit 3:7-17 (Brenton’s Septuagint); Wikipedia, Book of Tobit
A grave dug in the night
Tobias did as Raphael had told him that night and burned the heart and liver of a fish, whose smoke drove the evil spirit away. Sarah’s father, Raguel, was afraid Tobias had died too. He got up in the night and dug a grave. Then a maid opened the door and found the two of them asleep. Raguel praised God for His mercy, and had the grave filled in.
Which Bibles have it?
The Book of Tobit is in the Bible of the Orthodox and Catholic Churches. It is not in the Hebrew Bible, so Protestants count it among the Apocrypha. Scholars date it to the 3rd or early 2nd century BC.
Wikipedia, Book of Tobit; Azbyka.ru, The prayer of newlyweds (the prayer of Tobias)
What the words mean
Why “my sister”?
Tobias calls his bride “sister”. She was not his sister by birth: she was Raguel’s daughter. But the two were kin, and the Book of Tobit says Sarah belonged to Tobias by right of inheritance.
The Scripture in it
The LORD God also said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make for him a suitable helper.”
So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep, and while he slept, He took one of the man’s ribs and closed up the area with flesh. And from the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man, He made a woman and brought her to him.
Bible text: Berean Standard Bible, public domain.
In Greek
Εὐλογητὸς εἶ ὁ Θεὸς τῶν πατέρων ἡμῶν, καὶ εὐλογητὸν τὸ ὄνομά Σου τὸ ἅγιον καὶ ἔνδοξον εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας·
εὐλογησάτωσάν Σε οἱ οὐρανοὶ, καὶ πᾶσαι αἱ κτίσεις Σου.
Σὺ ἐποίησας Ἀδάμ, καὶ ἔδωκας αὐτῷ βοηθὸν Εὖαν στήριγμα τὴν γυναῖκα αὐτοῦ·
ἐκ τούτων ἐγενήθη τὸ ἀνθρώπων σπέρμα·
Σὺ εἶπας, οὐ καλὸν εἶναι τὸν ἄνθρωπον μόνον, ποιήσωμεν αὐτῷ βοηθὸν ὅμοιον αὐτῷ.
Καὶ νῦν, Κύριε, οὐ διὰ πορνείαν ἐγὼ λαμβάνω τὴν ἀδελφήν μου ταύτην, ἀλλὰ ἐπʼ ἀληθείας ἐπίταξον ἐλεῆσαί με, καὶ αὐτῇ συγκαταγηρᾶσαι.
Καὶ εἶπε μετʼ αὐτοῦ, ἀμήν.