13
for this is where all the people of Bethulia get their water. So thirst will destroy them, and they will give up their city. We and our people will go up to the tops of the nearby mountains and camp there to keep watch that not a man gets out of the city.
14
They and their wives and children will waste away with famine, and before the sword reaches them they will be strewn about in the streets where they live.
15
So you will pay them back with evil, because they rebelled and did not receive you peaceably."
16
These words pleased Holofernes and all his servants, and he gave orders to do as they had said.
17
So the army of the Ammonites moved forward, together with five thousand Assyrians, and they encamped in the valley and seized the water supply and the springs of the Israelites.
Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1952 [2nd edition, 1971] by the 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.