Judith

Judith 16

Judith’s Song

1 And Judith said:

“Strike up for my God with hand-drums;

sing to the Lord with cymbals.

Tune him a psalm and a song of praise;

lift him high and call on his name.

2 For the Lord is a God who shatters wars;

for into his camp, in the midst of the people,

he tore me out of the hand of those who were hunting me.

3 Assyria came out of the mountains, from the north;

he came with the tens of thousands of his army.

Their numbers choked the streambeds,

and their horses covered the hills.

4 He said he would burn up my borders,

and kill my young men with the sword,

and throw my nursing children to the ground,

and hand my little ones over to be plundered,

and carry off my virgins as spoil.

5 The Lord Almighty thwarted them by the hand of a woman.

6 For their mighty man did not go down before young men,

nor did the sons of the Titans strike him,

nor did tall giants set on him;

but Judith the daughter of Merari

undid him by the beauty of her face.

7 For she took off the clothes of her widowhood

to raise up those who were worn down in Israel;

she rubbed her face with sweet oil,

8 and bound her hair in a turban,

and took a linen robe to trick him.

9 Her sandal snatched his eye,

her beauty took his soul captive,

and the short sword went through his neck.

10 The Persians shuddered at her daring,

and the Medes were shaken by her boldness.

11 Then my lowly ones raised the war cry,

and my weak ones were afraid and shook with terror;

they lifted up their voice, and they were overturned.

12 Sons of young girls ran them through

and wounded them like the children of runaways;

they were destroyed by the battle line of my Lord.

13 I will sing my God a new song:

Lord, you are great and full of glory,

wonderful in strength, and no one can overtake you.

14 Let everything you made serve you;

for you spoke, and they came to be.

You sent out your spirit, and it built them,

and there is no one who can stand against your voice.

15 For the mountains will be shaken from their foundations, waters and all,

and the rocks will melt like wax before your face;

but to those who fear you, you will still be kind.

16 For every sacrifice is a small thing as a pleasing smell,

and all the fat is very little for a whole burnt offering to you;

but whoever fears the Lord is great always.

17 Woe to the nations that rise up against my own people!

The Lord Almighty will take his revenge on them

in the day of judgment,

putting fire and worms into their flesh;

and they will weep and feel it forever.”

They Go Up to Jerusalem

18 When they came to Jerusalem, they bowed down to God; and once the people had been made clean, they offered up their whole burnt offerings and their freewill gifts and their presents. 19 And Judith set apart all the goods of Holofernes that the people had given her, and the bed canopy that she had taken for herself out of his bedroom she gave to God as a dedicated gift. 20 And the people went on celebrating in Jerusalem in front of the holy place for three months, and Judith stayed on with them.

Judith’s Last Years

21 After those days each one went back to his own inheritance, and Judith went away to Bethulia and stayed on her own property; and in her own time she was honored in all the land. 22 Many men wanted her, but no man knew her all the days of her life, from the day Manasseh her husband died and was gathered to his people. 23 She went on growing very great, and grew old in her husband’s house, a hundred and five years. And she set her attendant free. And she died in Bethulia, and they buried her in the cave of her husband Manasseh, 24 and the house of Israel mourned for her seven days. Before she died she had divided what she owned among all those nearest to Manasseh her husband and those nearest to her own family. 25 And there was no one left to frighten the children of Israel in the days of Judith, or for a long time after she died.