Book of Judith

"Your strength does not depend on numbers, nor your might on the powerful. But you are the God of the lowly, helper of the oppressed, upholder of the weak, protector of the forsaken, savior of those without hope."

"Who are you to put God to the test today and to set yourselves up in the place of God in human affairs? You are putting the Lord Almighty to the test, but you will never learn anything! You cannot plumb the depths of the human heart or understand the workings of the human mind; how do you expect to search out God, who made all these things, and find out his mind or comprehend his thought? No, my brothers, do not anger the Lord our God."

"Do not try to bind the purposes of the Lord our God, for God is not like a human being, to be threatened, or like a mere mortal, to be won over by pleading. Therefore, while we wait for his deliverance, let us call upon him to help us, and he will hear our voice, if it pleases him."

"In spite of everything, let us give thanks to the Lord our God, who is putting us to the test as he did our ancestors. Remember what he did with Abraham and how he tested Isaac and what happened to Jacob in Syrian Mesopotamia, while he was tending the sheep of Laban, his mother’s brother."

"“O Lord God of my ancestor Simeon, to whom you gave a sword to take revenge on those strangers who had torn off a virgin’s clothing to defile her and exposed her thighs to put her to shame and profaned her womb to disgrace her, for you said, ‘It shall not be done’—yet they did it, so you gave up their rulers to be killed, and their bed, which was ashamed of the deceit they had practiced, was stained with blood, and you struck down slaves along with princes and princes on their thrones."

"Begin a song to my God with tambourines; / sing to my Lord with cymbals. / Raise to him a new psalm; / exalt him and call upon his name. / For the Lord is a God who crushes wars; / he sets up his camp among his people; / he delivered me from the hands of my pursuers."

"Judith remained as a widow for three years and four months at home, where she set up a tent for herself on the roof of her house. She put sackcloth around her waist and dressed in widow’s clothing. She fasted all the days of her widowhood except the day before the Sabbath and the Sabbath itself, the day before the new moon and the day of the new moon, and the festivals and days of rejoicing of the house of Israel. She was beautiful in appearance and was very lovely to behold. Her husband Manasseh had left her gold and silver, male and female slaves, livestock, and fields, and she maintained this estate. No one spoke ill of her, for she feared God with great devotion."

"For you, Mary, Queen of all women, the blessed Judith kept watch and clothed herself in the innocence of learning to humiliate the proud Holofernes, the general of the Assyrian forces."