9. Therefore, so that you may be able to overcome them without joining battle, set guards at the springs so that they may not draw water from them, and you will put them to death without the sword, or at least, being weary, they will hand over their city, which they suppose to be, by its position in the mountains, unable to be conquered."
10. And these words were pleasing before Holofernes and before his attendants, and so he stationed a hundred men around every spring.
11. And when they had kept this watch through twenty full days, the cisterns and collections of waters failed among all the inhabitants of Bethulia, so that there was within the city not enough to satisfy them for even one day, because water was given out to the people daily by measure.
12. Then, all the men and women, youths and little ones, gathering together before Uzziah, all with one voice together,
13. said: "May God be judge between us and you, for you have done evil with us, in not being willing to speak peacefully with the Assyrians, and because of this, God has sold us into their hands.
14. And therefore, there is no one to help us, while we are prostrated before their eyes with thirst and great destruction.
15. And now, gather together all who are in the city, so that we may willingly deliver everyone of us to the people of Holofernes.
16. For it is better that as captives, being alive, we should bless the Lord, than that we should die and become a disgrace to all flesh, after we have seen our wives and our children die before our eyes.
17. We call to witness this day heaven and earth, and the God of our fathers, who takes vengeance upon us according to our sins, so that now you may deliver the city into the hand of the military of Holofernes. And may our end be brief, by the edge of the sword, that would be made longer by the dryness of thirst."
18. And when they had said these things, there happened a great weeping and a loud lamentation within the assembly. From everyone and for many hours, with one voice, they cried out to God, saying:
19. "We have sinned like our fathers, we have acted unjustly, we have committed iniquity.