23. And all the people were gathered together against Ozias, and against the rulers of the city, the young men and the women and the children, and they cried with a loud voice, and said before all the elders,
24. God be judge between you and us: because you⌃ have done us great wrong, in that you⌃ have not spoken words of peace with the children of Asshur.
25. And now we have no helper: but God has sold us into their hands, that we should be laid low before them with thirst and great destruction.
26. And now call them to you, and deliver up the whole city for a prey to the people of Holofernes, and to all his host.
27. For it is better for us to be made a spoil to them: for we shall be servants, and our souls shall live, and we shall not see the death of our babes before our eyes, and our wives and our children fainting in death.
28. We take to witness against you the heaven and the earth, and our God and the Lord of our fathers, which punishes us according to our sins and the sins of our fathers, that he do not according as we have said this day.