Judith 11

Judith Speaks Before Holofernes

1Holofernes said to her: “Take heart, woman. Do not be afraid in your heart. I have never harmed anyone who chose to serve Nebuchadnezzar, king of all the earth. 2And as for your people, the ones living in the hill country: if they had not treated me as nothing, I would not have raised my spear against them. They brought this on themselves. 3Now tell me why you ran from them and came over to us. You have come here to safety. Take heart: you will live tonight, and after tonight too. 4No one is going to wrong you. They will treat you well, as they treat the servants of my lord King Nebuchadnezzar.” 5Judith said to him: “Take in the words of your slave, and let your servant girl speak in your presence, and I will report no lie to my lord tonight. 6And if you follow the words of your servant girl to the end, God will bring a thing to completion with you, and my lord will not fall short of anything he has undertaken. 7For as Nebuchadnezzar king of all the earth lives, and as his power lives — he who sent you out to set every living soul straight — it is not men alone who serve him because of you: the wild beasts too, and the livestock and the birds of the sky, will live under Nebuchadnezzar and his whole house through your strength. 8We have heard of your wisdom and of the cunning turns of your mind, and it has been announced to the whole earth that you alone are good in the entire kingdom, mighty in understanding, and astonishing in campaigns of war. 9Now, the speech Achior made in your council — we heard what he said, because the men of Bethulia kept him alive, and he reported to them all he had spoken before you. 10So, my master and lord, do not pass over his word; lay it away in your heart, because it is true. Those of our race are not punished, no sword prevails over them, unless they have sinned against their God. 11And now, so that my lord is not cast off empty with nothing accomplished: death is about to fall on their faces, and a sin has caught up with them by which they will enrage their God, the moment they do what ought not to be done. 12Their food has run out on them and all their water has grown scarce, so they have resolved to lay hands on their livestock, and they have decided to consume everything that God forbade them by his laws to eat. 13Even the firstfruits of grain and the tithes of wine and of oil, which they had guarded and consecrated for the priests who stand at Jerusalem in the presence of our God — even these they have judged fit to use up, when not one of the people is permitted to lay so much as a hand on them. 14They have sent men to Jerusalem, since the people living there have been doing the same, to bring them back a release from the council of elders. 15And here is what will happen: the moment word reaches them and they act on it, that very day they will be handed over to you for destruction. 16That is why I, your slave, once I came to know all this, ran away from their presence. God has sent me to do deeds alongside you at which the whole earth will be dumbfounded, everyone who hears of them. 17For your slave is a woman who fears God; she serves the God of heaven night and day. So now, my lord, I will stay here beside you — but your slave will go out at night into the gorge, and I will pray to God; and he will let me know the moment they have committed their sins. 18Then I will come and bring the word up to you, and you will march out with your whole force, and there will not be one of them who can stand against you. 19I will lead you through the middle of Judea until you come opposite Jerusalem, and I will set your seat in the middle of it. You will drive them like sheep with no shepherd, and not a dog will so much as growl at you with its tongue. All this was spoken to me according to my foreknowledge; it was reported to me, and I was sent to report it to you.” 20Her words pleased Holofernes and pleased all his attendants, and they marveled at her wisdom and said: 21“No woman like this exists between the two ends of the earth, so lovely of face and so wise in her words.” 22Then Holofernes told her: “God has done well to send you ahead of the people, to put force into our hands and ruin into those who made nothing of my lord. 23And now you are charming in your looks and good in your words. If you do as you have said, your God will be my god, and you will sit in the house of King Nebuchadnezzar and your name will be spoken over the whole earth.”