23. So all the people, including youths, women, and children, went in a crowd to Uzziah and the rulers of the city. They cried out loudly and said before all the elders:
24. “May God judge between you and us! You have done us grave injustice in not making peace with the Assyrians.
25. There is no one to help us now! God has sold us into their hands by laying us prostrate before them in thirst and utter exhaustion.
26. So now, summon them and deliver the whole city as plunder to the troops of Holofernes and to all his forces;
27. we would be better off to become their prey. Although we would be made slaves, at least we would live, and not have to see our little ones dying before our eyes, and our wives and children breathing their last.
28. We adjure you by heaven and earth and by our God, the Lord of our ancestors, who is punishing us for our sins and the sins of our ancestors, that this very day you do as we have proposed.”
29. All in the assembly with one accord broke into shrill wailing and cried loudly to the Lord their God.