1. Then Judith sang this canticle to the Lord, saying:
2. "Call to the Lord with drums, sing to the Lord with cymbals, play for him a new psalm, exalt and invoke his name.
3. The Lord crushes wars; the Lord is his name.
4. He has set up his camp in the midst of his people, to rescue us from the hand of all our enemies.
5. Assur came from the mountains, from the North, with the multitude of his strength. His multitude blockaded the torrents, and their horses covered the valleys.
6. He told himself that he would set fire to my borders, and kill my young men with the sword, to give my children into plunder and my virgins into captivity.
7. But the almighty Lord has harmed him, and he has delivered him into the hands of a woman, and he has pierced him through.
8. For their powerful one did not fall by young men, nor did the sons of Titan strike him, nor did lofty giants set themselves against him, but Judith, the daughter of Merari, dissolved him with the splendor of her face.
9. For she put away from herself the garments of widowhood, and she clothed herself with the garments of rejoicing, for the sake of the exultation of the sons of Israel.
10. She anointed her face with ointment, and she gathered the locks of her hair with a headdress; she accepted a new dress in order to deceive him.
11. Her sandals ravished his eyes; her beauty made his soul her captive; with a blade, she cut off his head.
12. The Persians were horrified at her constancy, and the Medes at her boldness.
13. Then the camp of the Assyrians howled, when my humble ones appeared, parched with thirst.
14. The sons of the servant girls have pierced them through, and, like fleeing servants, they have killed them. They perished in battle before the face of the Lord, my God.
15. Let us sing a canticle to the Lord; let us sing a new hymn to our God.