Judith 16

The Song of Judith

1And Judith said: “Strike up for my God with tambourines; sing to the Lord with cymbals; harmonize for him a psalm and a song of praise; lift him high and call upon his name. 2For the Lord is a God who shatters wars: in his encampments, in the middle of his people, he tore me out of the hand of those hunting me. 3Asshur came from the mountains, out of the north; he came with the tens of thousands of his force. Their multitude choked the torrent beds; their cavalry blanketed the hills. 4He said he would burn my borders, put my young men to the sword, dash my nursing infants to the ground, hand my little ones over as plunder, and carry off my virgins as spoil. 5The Lord Almighty threw them down by a woman’s hand. 6For their strong one did not fall under young men; the sons of the Titans did not strike him down; no towering giants laid hold of him. It was Judith, the daughter of Merari, who unstrung him by the beauty of her own face. 7She stripped off the robe of her widowhood, to raise up those who suffer in Israel; she oiled her face with perfume, 8she bound her hair in a headdress, and she took a linen robe, to deceive him. 9Her sandal snatched away his eye; her beauty took his soul captive; the short sword went through his neck. 10Persians shuddered at her daring; Medes were thrown into confusion by her boldness. 11Then my lowly ones raised the war cry, and the enemy took fright; my weak ones raised it too, and the enemy panicked; they lifted their voices, and the enemy was overturned. 12Sons of mere girls ran them through and wounded them like the children of deserters. They were destroyed by the battle line of my Lord. 13I will sing my God a new hymn. Lord, you are great and full of glory, astonishing in strength, unsurpassable. 14Let your whole creation serve you, for you spoke and they came to be; you sent out your spirit and it built, and there is no one who can stand against your voice. 15Mountains will be shaken from their foundations along with the waters; rocks will melt like wax before your face. But to those who fear you, you will still be merciful. 16For every sacrifice offered as a pleasing fragrance is a small thing, and all the fat of a burnt offering to you is the least of things; but whoever fears the Lord is great forever. 17Woe to the nations rising up against my race! On the day of judgment the Lord Almighty will punish them: he will put fire and worms into their flesh, and to the end of the age they will weep, feeling every pang.”

Thanksgiving in Jerusalem

18When they came to Jerusalem they worshipped God, and once the people had been purified they brought up their burnt offerings, their freewill offerings, and their gifts. 19Judith dedicated all the gear of Holofernes that the people gave her, and the canopy she had taken for herself out of his bedchamber she handed over as an offering to God. 20The people went on rejoicing in Jerusalem in front of the holy place for three months, and Judith stayed on with them.

The Last Years of Judith

21After those days each of them went back to his own inheritance. Judith went off to Bethulia and stayed on her own estate, and in her lifetime she became famous throughout the whole land. 22Many desired her, but no man knew her for the whole of her life, from the day her husband Manasseh died and joined his people. 23She went on growing ever greater, and in her husband’s house she came to old age — a hundred and five years. She set her maid free. In Bethulia she died, and she was laid in the cave of Manasseh her husband. 24The house of Israel mourned her seven days. Before she died she had divided her property among all those closest to Manasseh her husband and all those closest in her own family. 25And in the days of Judith there was no one left to terrify the Israelites, nor for long after her death.