20. “Look,” they said, “the garden doors are shut, no one can see us, and we want you. So give in to our desire, and lie with us.
21. If you refuse, we will testify against you that a young man was here with you and that is why you sent your maids away.”
22. “I am completely trapped,” Susanna groaned. “If I yield, it will be my death; if I refuse, I cannot escape your power.
23. Yet it is better for me not to do it and to fall into your power than to sin before the Lord.”
24. Then Susanna screamed, and the two old men also shouted at her,
25. as one of them ran to open the garden gates.
26. When the people in the house heard the cries from the garden, they rushed in by the side gate to see what had happened to her.
27. At the accusations of the old men, the servants felt very much ashamed, for never had any such thing been said about Susanna.
28. When the people came to her husband Joakim the next day, the two wicked old men also came, full of lawless intent to put Susanna to death.
29. Before the people they ordered: “Send for Susanna, the daughter of Hilkiah, the wife of Joakim.” When she was sent for,
30. she came with her parents, children and all her relatives.
31. Susanna, very delicate and beautiful,
32. was veiled; but those transgressors of the law ordered that she be exposed so as to sate themselves with her beauty.
33. All her companions and the onlookers were weeping.
34. In the midst of the people the two old men rose up and laid their hands on her head.
35. As she wept she looked up to heaven, for she trusted in the Lord wholeheartedly.
36. The old men said, “As we were walking in the garden alone, this woman entered with two servant girls, shut the garden gates and sent the servant girls away.