Judith 13 - Summary

When the servants have gone, Judith is left alone with Holofernes, drunk on his bed. Praying in her heart for strength 'for the exaltation of Jerusalem', she takes his fauchion from the bedpost, seizes his hair and strikes his neck twice, cutting off his head. Her maid puts the head in the food bag, and the two go out as if to pray. At the gate of Bethulia she cries, 'God, even our God, is with us', shows the head and the canopy, and swears he never defiled her. Ozias blesses her 'above all the women upon the earth'.