heir horsemen, four and thirty days; and all their
vessels of water failed all the inhabitants of Bethulia. And the
cisterns were emptied, and they had not water to drink their fill for
one day: for they gave them drink by measure. And their young children
were dying, and the women and the young men fainted for thirst, and
they fell down in the streets of the city, and in the passages of the
gates, and there was no longer any strength in them. And all the
people were gathered together against Ozias, and against the rulers of
the city, the young men and the women and the children, and they cried
with a loud voice, and said before all the elders,--

"God be judge between you and us: because ye have done us great wrong,
in that ye have not spoken words of peace with the children of Asshur.
And now we have no helper: but God hath given us into their hands,
that we should be laid low before them with thirst and great
destruction. And now call them unto you, and deliver up the whole city
for a prey to the people of Holofernes, and to all his host. For it is
better for us to be made a spoil for them: for we shall be servants,
and our souls shall live, and we shall not see the death of our babes
before our eyes, and our wives and our children fainting in death. We
take to witness against you the heaven and the earth, and our God and
the Lord of our fathers, who punisheth us according to our sins and
the sins of our fathers, that he do not according as we have said this
day."

And there was great weeping of all with one consent {86} in the midst
of the assembly; and they cried unto the Lord God with a loud voice.
And Ozias said to them, "Brethren, be of good courage, let us yet
endure five days, in the which space the Lord our God may turn his
mercy toward us; for he will not forsake us utterly. But if these days
pass, and there come no help unto us, I will do according to your
words."

And he dispersed the people, every man to his own camp; and they went
away unto the walls and towers of their city; and he sent the women
and children into their houses: and they were brought very low in the
city.

_Then there arose a saviour for Israel in the person of
Judith_.

And in those days Judith heard thereof, whose husband was Manasses, of
her tribe and of her family, and he died in the days of barley
harvest. For he stood over them that bound sheaves in the field, and
the heat came upon his head, and he fell on his bed, and died