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CHAPTER 9
1 And while they went away, Judith entered into her oratory, and she clothed herself with an hair-shirt, and putted ashes upon her head; and she bowed down herself to the Lord, and cried to the Lord, and said,
2 Lord God of my father Simeon, which gavest to him a sword into defense of aliens, that were defoulers in their defouling, and made naked the hip of a virgin [or the maiden] into her own confusion;
3 and thou gavest the women of them into prey, and the daughters of them into captivity, and all the prey into parting [or division] to thy servants, that loved fervently thy fervent love; Lord, I beseech thee, help thou me a widow.
4 For thou madest the former things, and those things thou thoughtest to make afterward, and this thing is made to us, which thou wouldest.
5 For all thy ways be ready, and thou hast set thy dooms in thine own purveyance.
6 Behold thou the strengths [or the tents] of the men of Assyria now, as then thou vouchedest safe to behold the strengths [or the tents] of the men of Egypt, when they came armed after thy servants, and trusted in their chariots [or four-horsed carts], and in the multitude of their knights, and in the multitude of their warriors [or fighters].
7 But thou beheldest on the powers of them, and darknesses made them faint; [But thou beheld upon the tents of them, and darknesses over-travailed them;]
8 the bottom of the sea held their feet, and waters covered them.
9 Lord, also these men be made so, that trust in their multitude, or Lord, be these men made also in like manner, which trust in their multitude, and in their chariots, and in their sharp shafts without iron [or in weapons], and in their arrows; and have vain glory in their spears;
10 and they know not, that thou thyself art our God, that all-breakest battles from the beginning, and the Lord is name to thee.
11 Raise up thine arm, that is, thy power, as thou didest at [or from] the beginning, and hurtle down the power of them in thy virtue, or in thy virtue hurledest down the power of them; the power of them fall it down in thy wrathfulness, which promise them[selves] to defoul thine holy things, and to defoul [or to pollute] the tabernacle of thy name, or which promise[d] them[selves] to defoul the tabernacle of thy name, and to cast [or to throw] down with their sword the horn or the might of thine altar.
12 Lord, make thou, that the pride of them be cut off [or cut away] with their own sword;
13 and be Holofernes taken with the snare of his eyes in me; and thou shalt smite him with the lips of my charity, that is, by my sweet words, and showing love.
14 Give, Lord, thou to me steadfastness in soul [or in will], that I despise him and his virtue or his power, and destroy him [or turn him upside-down].
15 For it shall be a memorial or a mindfulness to thy name, when the hands of a woman have cast [or have thrown] him down.
16 For why, Lord, thy virtue or thy power is not in multitude, neither thy will is in the strengths of horses; and proud spirits pleased not thee at the beginning [or nor proud men pleased to thee from the beginning], but the prayer of meek men and mild hath ever[more] pleased thee.
17 God of heavens, thou art Creator of waters, and Lord of all creatures or of each creature, hear thou me wretched woman praying, and trusting of thy mercy.
18 Lord, have thou mind of thy testament, and give a word in my mouth to speak, and make thou strong the counsel of thee in mine heart, that thine house dwell perfectly in thine hallowing;
19 and that all folks know, that thou art God, and that none other is except thee. [and all Gentiles know, for thou art God, and there is none other besides thee.]

- JUDITH
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© 2001,2010,2011,2012,2013,2015 Terry Noble