CHAPTER 14
1 Forsooth Judith said to all the people, Brethren, hear ye [or Heareth, brethren]; hang ye up this head upon your walls.
2 And it shall be, when the sun riseth, each man take his armours [or his arms], and go ye out with fierce-ness, not that ye go all down beneath the hill, but as men making assault.
3 And then it shall be needed, that the spyers [or the spies] of the land flee to raise up their prince to battle.
4 And when the dukes of them shall run together to the tabernacle of Holofernes, and find him headless [or beheaded], wallowed [or wrapped] in his blood, dread shall fall down upon them.
5 And when ye know that they flee, go ye securely after them, for God shall all-break them [or tread them] under your feet.
6 Then Achior saw the virtue that God of Israel had done, and he forsook the custom of heathenness, and he believed to God; and he circumcised the flesh of his rod, and he was put to the people of Israel, and all the after-coming of his kin till into this day or unto this time, [or unto the day that is now].
7 Forsooth anon as the day rose, they hanged the head of Holofernes on the wall; and each man took his armours [or his arms], and they went out with great noise and yelling.
8 Which thing the spyers [or the spies] saw, and they ran to the tabernacle of Holofernes.
9 And they, that were in the tabernacle, came, and made noise before the entering of the bed [or the in-coming of the privy chamber]of Holofernes, and they imagined by crafty unrestfulness for cause of up-raising [him], that Holofernes should awake not of the raisers, but of the noise of[the] sounders.
10 For no man was hardy to open the tabernacle of the virtue, that is, of the prince of the chivalry, of Assyrians by knocking, either by entering.
11 But when his dukes, and his tribunes [or the leaders of thousands], and all the greater men of the host of the king of Assyria were come, they said to the chamberlains,
12 Enter ye, and raise ye him up; for mice be gone out of the caves, and they dare move us [or call forth us] to battle.
13 Then Bagoas entered into his closet [or into his privy chamber], and he stood before the curtain of his bed, and he made beating together with his hands; for he supposed him to sleep with Judith.
14 But when by the wit, or listening, of his ears he perceived not any stirring [or moving] of Holofernes lying there, he came nigh and nighed to the curtain, and he drew it up or he raised it, and he saw the dead body of Holofernes without head, defouled [or rotting] in his blood, and lying upon the earth, and he cried [out] with great voice with weeping, and rent his clothes.
15 And Bagoas entered into the tabernacle of Judith, and found not her [or found her not], and anon he went out to the people,
16 and said, An Hebrew woman hath made confusion in the house of king Nebuchadnezzar; for lo! Holofernes lieth in the earth, and his head is not with him.
17 And when the princes of the virtue or the power of Assyrians had heard this thing, all they rent their clothes, and unsufferable [or intolerable] dread and trembling felled down upon them, and their souls were troubled greatly.
18 And uncomparable cry was made by the middle of their tents./And cry that might not be comparisoned was made throughout their tents.