in reply to reading text from afile

In the interest of TIMTOWTDI, a one-liner that does almost what you're looking for. 
perl -pi.bak -e 's/[\{0-9\}\{0-9\}]//g;'

[download]
This will edit your files "in place", saving off the originals with a ".bak" suffix.

thor

Feel the white light, the light within
Be your own disciple, fan the sparks of will
For all of us waiting, your kingdom will come

In Section Seekers of Perl Wisdom