Judith 4

¹ When the Israelites living in Judaea heard how Holofernes, general-in-chief of Nebuchadnezzar king ofthe Assyrians, had treated the various nations, plundering their temples and destroying them,

² they were thoroughly alarmed at his approach and trembled for Jerusalem and the Temple of the Lordtheir God.

³ They had returned from captivity only a short time before, and the resettlement of the people in Judaeaand the reconsecration of the sacred furnishings, of the altar, and of the Temple, which had been profaned, wereof recent date.

⁴ They therefore alerted the whole of Samaria, Kona, Beth-Horon, Belmain, Jericho, Choba, Aesora andthe Salem val ey.

⁵ They occupied the summits of the highest mountains and fortified the vil ages on them; they laid insupplies for the coming war, as the fields had just been harvested.

⁶ Joakim the high priest, resident in Jerusalem at the time, wrote to the inhabitants of Bethulia and ofBetomesthaim, two towns facing Esdraelon, towards the plain of Dothan.

⁷ He ordered them to occupy the mountain passes, the only means of access to Judaea, for there it wouldbe easy for them to halt an attacking force, the narrowness of the approach not al owing men to advance morethan two abreast.

⁸ The Israelites carried out the orders of Joakim the high priest and of the people's Council of Elders insession at Jerusalem.

⁹ All the men of Israel cried most fervently to God and humbled themselves before him.

¹⁰ They, their wives, their children, their cattle, al their resident aliens, hired or slave, wrapped sackclothround their loins.

¹¹ Al the Israelites in Jerusalem, including women and children, lay prostrate in front of the Temple, andwith ashes on their heads stretched out their hands before the Lord.

¹² They draped the altar itself in sackcloth and fervently joined together in begging the God of Israel not tolet their children be carried off, their wives distributed as booty, the towns of their heritage destroyed, the Templeprofaned and desecrated for the heathen to gloat over.

¹³ The Lord heard them and looked kindly on their distress. The people fasted for many days throughoutJudaea as wel as in Jerusalem before the sanctuary of the Lord Almighty.

¹⁴ Joakim the high priest and al who stood before the Lord, the Lord's priests and ministers, woresackcloth round their loins as they offered the perpetual burnt offering and the votive and voluntary offerings ofthe people.

¹⁵ With ashes on their turbans they earnestly cal ed on the Lord to look kindly on the House of Israel.