Judith 9

The Prayer of Judith

1Judith fell on her face, put ashes on her head, and laid bare the sackcloth she was wearing. It was the hour when that evening’s incense was being offered in the house of God at Jerusalem, and Judith cried out to the Lord at the top of her voice and said: 2“Lord, God of Simeon my father, into whose hand you put a sword for vengeance on foreigners — men who loosened a virgin’s womb for defilement, who bared a thigh for shame, who profaned a womb for disgrace. You had said, ‘It shall not be done,’ and they did it. 3For that you handed their rulers over to butchery, and their bed, which had blushed at their deceit, was itself deceived into blood. You struck slaves down together with lords, and lords upon their thrones. 4You handed their wives over as plunder and their daughters into captivity, and all their plunder to be shared out among the sons you love — sons who burned with your own zeal, who were sickened by the defiling of their blood, and who called on you as their helper. God, God, my God — hear me too, a widow. 5For you made what came before them, and those things themselves, and what came after. You thought out what is now and what is still on its way, and what you had in mind came to be. 6The things you planned stood up and said, ‘Here we are.’ For all your roads are ready and your verdict is reached in foreknowledge. 7Look at the Assyrians: they have swollen with strength, they stand tall on horse and rider, they swagger in the arm of their infantry, they set their hope on shield and javelin, on bow and sling — and they do not know that you are the Lord who shatters wars. 8Lord is your name. Smash their force with your power; bring their might down in your anger. They have planned to profane your holy things, to defile the tent where the name of your glory comes to rest, to fell the horn of your altar with iron. 9Look at their arrogance. Send your rage down on their heads. Put into my hand, the hand of a widow, the force I have planned. 10By the lips of my deceit, strike the slave down along with the ruler, and the ruler along with his attendant. Bring their stature crashing down by a woman’s hand. 11Your might does not stand in numbers, nor your mastery in strong men. You are the God of the lowly, the helper of the least, the support of the weak, the shelter of the abandoned, the rescuer of those past hope. 12Yes, God of my father; yes, God of Israel’s inheritance, Master of the heavens and the earth, Maker of the waters, King over all your creation: hear my plea. 13Turn my word and my deceit into their wound and their welt, on those who have planned hard things against your covenant, against your hallowed house, against the summit of Zion, against the house your children hold as their own. 14And make your whole nation and every tribe recognize and know that you are God, the God of all force and all might, and that there is no other who holds a shield over the race of Israel but you.”