Judith's Song of Praise

¹Judith sang:

Shout praises to my Lord God;

play tambourines and cymbals.

Sing a new song of praise

and pray for his help.

²The Lord God is a warrior

who rescued me from my enemy.

God wins every battle

and camps among his people.

³The Assyrians marched down

from the mountains in the north.

Thousands of soldiers blocked

the rivers and streams;

cavalry troops covered

the mountain like a blanket.

⁴They threatened to burn our land

and slaughter our young men,

to kill our babies

to capture our children,

and to carry off

all of our young women.

⁵But the Lord All-Powerful

fooled the Assyrians

and used a woman

to wipe them out.

⁶The mighty Assyrian leader

wasn't killed by young men

or cruel warriors or giants.

I, Judith the daughter of Merari,

used my charm

to strike him dead.

⁷I put aside my widow's clothes

and won a victory

for troubled Israel.

I put on perfume

⁸and placed

a fancy headband in my hair,

and I dressed in linen

to attract and fool him.

⁹He liked my sandals

and thought I was lovely;

then I took his own sword

and cut off his head.

¹⁰My courage shocked the Persians

and stunned the Medes.

¹¹Our weak and abused people

let out shouts of victory,

while the Assyrians

trembled in fear and ran.

¹²Though our ancestors were slaves,

we, the Lord's mighty army,

attacked and killed

enemy troops.

¹³I will sing a new song of praise[#Ps 144.9.]

to the Lord our God;

he is glorious and all-powerful,

and his strength never fails.

¹⁴Let all living creatures

worship the Lord.

By his word, he gave them life;

his breath created them.

Nothing can oppose

the Lord's command.

¹⁵Mountains and oceans

shake with fear,

and rocks melt like wax,

when the Lord approaches.

But he shows mercy to all

who are faithful to him.

¹⁶It is much better[#1 S 15.22; Ps 51.16,17; Ho 6.6.]

to obey the Lord

than to offer

sweet-smelling sacrifices

or the fat of choice meat.

¹⁷All nations that oppose Israel

will fall into ruin;

the Lord All-Powerful

will punish them

on the day of judgment.

Fire and worms

will destroy their bodies,

and they will always

groan in pain.

The People Celebrate in Jerusalem

¹⁸When the crowd reached Jerusalem, they immediately got ready to worship God by going through the ceremonies to make themselves clean. Then they offered the required sacrifices to please God, including the voluntary offering and other sacrifices and gifts.[#16.18 See the note at 4.14.]

¹⁹Judith brought along all of Holofernes' possessions that the people had given her, and she dedicated them to God. She also gave the mosquito net from the bed of Holofernes as a special offering to keep a promise.

²⁰Judith stayed in Jerusalem for three months, while she and the people celebrated at the temple.

The Rest of Judith's Life

²¹After the victory celebration, everyone went back home, and Judith returned to her place in Bethulia. She was famous everywhere in Israel for as long as she lived.

²²Although a lot of men asked to marry her, she always refused and never remarried after her husband Manasseh died.

^23-24Judith became more famous as time went by, and she continued to live in the house Manasseh had left her.

Some time before Judith died, she divided her possessions and property among her own closest relatives, as well as those of her husband, and she allowed her servant woman to go free.

Judith died in Bethulia at the age of 105. She was buried beside her husband in their family tomb, and everyone in Israel mourned her death for seven days.

²⁵As long as Judith was alive, and for many years after her death, no enemy nation terrorized the people of Israel.