27
For it would be better for us to be captured by them. We shall indeed become slaves, but our lives will be spared, and we shall not witness our little ones dying before our eyes, and our wives and children drawing their last breath.
25
For now we have no one to help us; God has sold us into their hands, to be strewn before them in thirst and exhaustion.
26
Now summon them and surrender the whole town as booty to the army of Holofernes and to all his forces.
27
For it would be better for us to be captured by them. We shall indeed become slaves, but our lives will be spared, and we shall not witness our little ones dying before our eyes, and our wives and children drawing their last breath.
28
We call to witness against you heaven and earth and our God, the Lord of our ancestors, who punishes us for our sins and the sins of our ancestors; do today the things that we have described!"
29
Then great and general lamentation arose throughout the assembly, and they cried out to the Lord God with a loud voice.
New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.