¹In the seventh month of that year, Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah and grandson of Elishama, a member of the royal family and one of the king's chief officers, went to Mizpah with ten men to see Governor Gedaliah. While they were all eating a meal together,

²Ishmael and the ten men with him pulled out their swords and killed Gedaliah.

³Ishmael also killed all the Israelites who were with Gedaliah at Mizpah and the Babylonian soldiers who happened to be there.

⁴The next day, before anyone knew about Gedaliah's murder,

⁵eighty men arrived from Shechem, Shiloh, and Samaria. They had shaved off their beards, torn their clothes, and gashed themselves. They were taking grain and incense to offer in the Temple.

⁶So Ishmael went out from Mizpah to meet them, weeping as he went. When he came to them, he said, “Please come in to see Gedaliah.”

⁷As soon as they were inside the city, Ishmael and his men killed them and threw their bodies in a well.

⁸But there were ten men in the group who said to Ishmael, “Please don't kill us! We have wheat, barley, olive oil, and honey hidden in the fields.” So he spared them.

⁹The well into which Ishmael threw the bodies of the men he had killed was the large one that King Asa had dug when he was being attacked by King Baasha of Israel. Ishmael filled the well with the bodies.

¹⁰Then he made prisoners of the king's daughters and all the rest of the people in Mizpah, whom Nebuzaradan the commanding officer had placed under the care of Gedaliah. Ishmael took them prisoner and started off in the direction of the territory of Ammon.

¹¹Johanan and all the army leaders with him heard of the crime that Ishmael had committed.

¹²So they went after him with their men and overtook him near the large pool at Gibeon.

¹³When Ishmael's prisoners saw Johanan and the leaders of the forces with him, they were glad,

¹⁴and turned and ran to them.

¹⁵But Ishmael and eight of his men got away from Johanan and escaped to the land of Ammon.

¹⁶Then Johanan and the leaders of the forces with him took charge of the people whom Ishmael had taken away as prisoners from Mizpah after murdering Gedaliah—soldiers, women, children, and eunuchs.

^17-18They were afraid of the Babylonians because Ishmael had murdered Gedaliah, whom the king of Babylonia had made governor of the land. So they set out for Egypt, in order to get away from the Babylonians. On the way they stopped at Chimham near Bethlehem.

The People Ask Jeremiah to Pray for Them

¹Then all the army leaders, including Johanan son of Kareah and Azariah son of Hoshaiah, came with people of every class

²and said to me, “Please do what we ask you! Pray to the Lord our God for us. Pray for all of us who have survived. Once there were many of us; but now only a few of us are left, as you can see.

³Pray that the Lord our God will show us the way we should go and what we should do.”

⁴I answered, “Very well, then. I will pray to the Lord our God, just as you have asked, and whatever he says, I will tell you. I will not keep back anything from you.”

⁵Then they said to me, “May the Lord be a true and faithful witness against us if we do not obey all the commands that the Lord our God gives you for us.

⁶Whether it pleases us or not, we will obey the Lord our God, to whom we are asking you to pray. All will go well with us if we obey him.”

The Lord's Answer to Jeremiah's Prayer

⁷Ten days later the Lord spoke to me;

⁸so I called together Johanan, all the army leaders who were with him, and all the other people.

⁹I said to them, “The Lord, the God of Israel, to whom you sent me with your request has said,

¹⁰‘If you are willing to go on living in this land, then I will build you up and not tear you down; I will plant you and not pull you up. The destruction I brought on you has caused me great sorrow.

¹¹Stop being afraid of the king of Babylonia. I am with you, and I will rescue you from his power.

¹²Because I am merciful, I will make him have mercy on you and let you go back home. I, the Lord, have spoken.’

^13-15“But you people who are left in Judah must not disobey the Lord your God and refuse to live in this land. You must not say, ‘No, we will go and live in Egypt, where we won't face war any more or hear the call to battle or go hungry.’ If you say this, then the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says, ‘If you are determined to go and live in Egypt,

¹⁶then the war that you fear will overtake you, and the hunger you dread will follow you, and you will die there in Egypt.

¹⁷All the people who are determined to go and live in Egypt will die either in war or of starvation or disease. Not one of them will survive, not one will escape the disaster that I am going to bring on them.’

¹⁸“The Lord, the God of Israel, says, ‘Just as my anger and fury were poured out on the people of Jerusalem, so my fury will be poured out on you if you go to Egypt. You will be a horrifying sight; people will make fun of you and use your name as a curse. You will never see this place again.’”

¹⁹Then I continued, “The Lord has told you people who are left in Judah not to go to Egypt. And so I warn you now

²⁰that you are making a fatal mistake. You asked me to pray to the Lord our God for you, and you promised that you would do everything that he commands.

²¹And now I have told you, but you are disobeying everything that the Lord our God sent me to tell you.

²²So then, remember this: you will die in war or of starvation or disease in the land where you want to go and live.”

Judith Remains Faithful to Her Religion

¹Holofernes commanded his men to take Judith to the table which was set with his silverware and to serve her some of his own special food and wine.

²But Judith refused. I cannot eat your food, she said, for I would be breaking the laws of my God. I will eat only what I have brought with me.

³But what will you do when your food and wine are gone? Holofernes asked. Where will we get more food for you? There are no Israelites here in our camp.

⁴Sir, Judith answered, as surely as you live, I have more than enough food to last until the Lord has used me to carry out his plan.

⁵Then Holofernes' personal servants led Judith to a tent. She slept there until the time of the morning watch just before dawn, when she got up

⁶and sent a message to Holofernes requesting permission to go out into the valley to pray.

⁷Holofernes ordered his guards to let Judith leave the camp. So for three days Judith lived in the camp, and each night she would go out to the valley near Bethulia and bathe at the spring.

⁸After she had bathed, she would pray to the Lord God to guide her in her plan to bring victory to Israel.

⁹Then she would return to the camp ritually pure and remain in her tent until after the evening meal.

Holofernes' Banquet

¹⁰On the fourth day of Judith's stay in the camp, Holofernes gave a banquet for his highest ranking officers, but he did not invite any of the officers who were on duty.

¹¹He said to Bagoas, the eunuch who was in charge of his personal affairs, Go and persuade the Hebrew woman, who is in your care, to come to my tent to eat and drink with us.

¹²It would be a shame to pass up an opportunity to make love to a woman like that. If I don't try to seduce her, she will laugh at me.

¹³So Bagoas left Holofernes and went to Judith. Lovely lady, he said, the general invites you to his tent for some drinks. Come and enjoy yourself like the Assyrian women who serve in Nebuchadnezzar's palace. This is a great honor.

¹⁴I shall be glad to accept, Judith answered. How could I refuse? I'll remember this happy night as long as I live.

¹⁵So Judith got up and put on her prettiest clothes. Her slave woman went ahead of her and placed on the ground in front of Holofernes the lamb skins that Bagoas had given Judith to sit on when she ate.

¹⁶Judith came into the tent and sat down there. Holofernes was aroused when he saw her and had an uncontrollable desire to make love to her. From the first day he had seen her, he had been waiting for a chance to seduce her.

¹⁷Join us for a drink and enjoy yourself, he said to her.

¹⁸I'll be glad to, sir, Judith replied; this is the happiest day of my life.

¹⁹But even then Judith ate and drank only what her slave had prepared.

²⁰Holofernes was so charmed by her that he drank more wine than he had ever drunk at one time in his whole life.

¹Finally, when it got late, the guests excused themselves and left. Bagoas then closed up the tent from the outside and prevented Holofernes' servants from going in. So they all went to bed; everyone was very tired because the banquet had lasted so long.

²Judith was left alone in the tent with Holofernes who was lying drunk on his bed.

³Judith's slave woman was waiting outside the tent for Judith to go and pray, as she had done each night. Judith had also told Bagoas that she would be going out to pray as usual.

⁴All the guests and servants were now gone, and Judith and Holofernes were alone in the tent. Judith stood by Holofernes' bed and prayed silently, O Lord, God Almighty, help me with what I am about to do for the glory of Jerusalem.

⁵Now is the time to rescue your chosen people and to help me carry out my plan to destroy the enemies who are threatening us.

⁶Judith went to the bedpost by Holofernes' head and took down his sword.

⁷She came closer, seized Holofernes by the hair of his head, and said, O Lord, God of Israel, give me strength now.

⁸Then Judith raised the sword and struck him twice in the neck as hard as she could, chopping off his head.

⁹She rolled his body off the bed and took down the mosquito net from the bedposts. Then she came out and gave Holofernes' head to her slave,

Judith and Her Slave Return to Bethulia

¹⁰who put it in the food bag. Then the two women left together, as they always did when they went to pray. After they had walked through the Assyrian camp, they crossed the valley and went up the mountainside until they came to the gates of Bethulia.

¹¹When they were a short distance away, Judith called out to the guards at the gate, Open the gate! Open the gate! Our God is still with us. Today he has once again shown his strength in Israel and used his power against our enemies.

¹²When the men heard her voice, they hurried down to the gates and called for the town officials.

¹³Everyone, young and old, ran together to the gate. No one could believe that Judith had come back. They opened the gate for her and her slave and welcomed them. Then, when they had lit a fire to give some light and had gathered around the two women,

¹⁴Judith shouted, Praise God, give him praise! Praise God, who has not held back his mercy from the people of Israel. Tonight he has used me to destroy our enemies.

¹⁵She then took the head out of the food bag and showed it to the people. Here, she said, is the head of Holofernes, the general of the Assyrian army, and here is the mosquito net from his bed, where he lay in a drunken stupor. The Lord used a woman to kill him.

¹⁶As the Lord lives, I swear that Holofernes never touched me, although my beauty deceived him and brought him to his ruin. I was not defiled or disgraced; the Lord took care of me through it all.

¹⁷Everyone in the city was utterly amazed. They bowed down and worshiped God, praying together, Our God, you are worthy of great praise. Today you have triumphed over the enemies of your people.

¹⁸Then Uzziah said, Judith, my dear, the Most High God has blessed you more than any other woman on earth. How worthy of praise is the Lord God who created heaven and earth! He guided you as you cut off the head of our deadliest enemy.

¹⁹Your trust in God will never be forgotten by those who tell of God's power.

²⁰May God give you everlasting honor for what you have done. May he reward you with blessings, because you remained faithful to him and did not hesitate to risk your own life to relieve the oppression of your people. All the people replied, Amen, amen!

Judith's Plan

¹Then Judith said to them, My friends, please follow my advice. In the morning, take this head and hang it on the town wall.

²Appoint a leader for yourselves, and at sunrise have all your able-bodied men take their weapons and march out of the town with him, as if they were going down into the valley to attack the Assyrian outpost.

³The Assyrian guards will grab their weapons and rush back to camp to wake up their officers. The officers will run to Holofernes' tent but will not find him, and the whole army will be terrified and retreat as you advance against them.

⁴Then you and all the other Israelites will be able to follow them and kill them as they retreat.

⁵But before you do any of this, send Achior the Ammonite to me. I want to see if he recognizes Holofernes, the man who spoke of Israel with contempt and sent Achior to us, thinking he would be killed along with the rest of us.

Achior's Conversion

⁶So they called Achior from Uzziah's house. But when he came and saw the head of Holofernes in the hands of one of the men, Achior fainted and fell to the floor.

⁷When they had helped him up, Achior bowed at Judith's feet in respect. May every family in the land of Judah praise you, he said, and may every nation tremble with terror when they hear your name.

⁸Please tell me how you managed to do this. While all the people were gathered around, Judith told him everything that she had done from the day she left the town until that moment.

⁹When she had finished her story, the people cheered so loudly that the whole town echoed with sounds of joy.

¹⁰When Achior heard all that the God of Israel had done, he became a firm believer. He was circumcised and made a member of the Israelite community, as his descendants are to the present day.

Panic in Holofernes' Camp

¹¹The next morning the Israelites hung the head of Holofernes on the wall of the town. All of them took up their weapons and went out in companies to the slopes in front of the town.

¹²When the Assyrians saw what was happening, they sent word to their officers, and these reported the matter to their superiors.

¹³These men then went to Holofernes' tent and said to Bagoas, Wake up the general! Those worthless Israelites have dared to come down from the mountain to attack us; they are just asking to be destroyed.

¹⁴Bagoas went in and clapped his hands in front of the sleeping quarters of the tent, thinking that Holofernes was in bed with Judith.

¹⁵When there was no answer, he drew the curtain aside and went in, and there he found the headless body sprawled over a footstool.

¹⁶Bagoas let out a yell. He screamed, tore his clothes, and started groaning and weeping.

¹⁷He went into the tent where Judith had stayed, but of course he did not find her. He rushed out and shouted to the officers,

¹⁸They have tricked us! One Israelite woman has disgraced Nebuchadnezzar's whole kingdom. Look in there! Holofernes is lying dead on the ground and his head is gone!

¹⁹When the officers heard this, they tore their clothes in grief; and as the panic spread, wild cries and shouts were heard throughout the camp.

¹³If you repay good with evil, you will never get evil out of your house.

¹⁴The start of an argument is like the first break in a dam; stop it before it goes any further.

¹⁵Condemning the innocent or letting the wicked go—both are hateful to the Lord.

¹⁶It does a fool no good to spend money on an education, because he has no common sense.