OZIAS. I say it will be so.

JUDITH. It shall not be so.

OZIAS. Then pray you to the Most High for the city, even for all of us,
and the Lord will send rain for our cisterns and we shall faint no more.
Pray, for you are a godly woman, and the God of Israel shall listen.

JUDITH (_with supreme impressiveness_). Hear me again, Ozias. This night
I will do a thing which shall go throughout all the generations to the
children of Israel. You shall stand this night in the gate of the city,
and I will go forth from the city with my waiting-woman; and within the
days that you have promised to deliver the city to our enemies the Lord
will visit Israel by my hand.

OZIAS. On what errand will you go?

JUDITH. Enquire not of my act, for I will not declare it until the
things are finished that I do. But this I declare, that the Lord has
inclined himself to me, and now he has sent Achior for a sign.

OZIAS. You go to Holofernes!

JUDITH. To Holofernes.

OZIAS. Do not go!

JUDITH. But why shall I not go?