The celebration intensifies. Judith leads the women in a triumphal procession, and the men follow bearing their weapons and garlands. The people go up to Jerusalem to worship at the Temple. Judith dedicates the spoils of Holofernes — his weapons, canopy, and furnishings — as an offering (anathema) to the Lord. The feast of dedication lasts three months.
Judith's procession to Jerusalem mirrors and completes the liturgical arc of the book: the story began with prayer and fasting at the Temple (chapter 4) and ends with victory celebration at the Temple. The canopy (conopeum) of Holofernes — under which he lay in drunken stupor — is consecrated as a votive offering, transforming the symbol of pagan luxury into sacred memorial.
The three-month feast is extraordinarily long, emphasizing the magnitude of the deliverance and the depth of communal gratitude.
The women's procession with song echoes Miriam at the Red Sea (Exodus 15:20-21), Deborah's song (Judges 5), and the women welcoming David (1 Samuel 18:6-7). The dedication of enemy spoils at the Temple follows the pattern of David dedicating Goliath's sword (1 Samuel 21:9).
Tunc Iudith canticum hoc cantavit Domino.
Then Judith sang this song to the Lord.
Canticum — a formal hymn or canticle, the genre of Moses' Song (Exodus 15), Deborah's Song (Judges 5), and Hannah's Song (1 Samuel 2).
Iudith vero omnia vasa bellica Holofernis quae dedit illi populus et conopeum quod ipsa sustulerat de cubili ipsius obtulit in anathema oblivionis.
Judith offered all the weapons of war of Holofernes that the people had given her, and the canopy she herself had taken from his bedchamber, as a votive offering of remembrance.
Anathema here means a thing devoted entirely to God (Hebrew cherem), not 'curse' in the modern sense. The objects are consecrated and removed from human use forever.
Erat autem populus iucundus secundum faciem sanctorum et per tres menses gaudium huius victoriae celebratum est cum Iudith.
The people were joyful before the holy things, and for three months the gladness of this victory was celebrated with Judith.
Post dies autem illos unusquisque rediit in domum suam et Iudith magna facta est in Bethulia et praeclarior erat universae terrae Israhel.
After those days, everyone returned to their own home, and Judith became great in Bethulia and was more renowned than anyone in all the land of Israel.
Erat enim castitati adiuncta virtus ita ut non cognosceret virum omnibus diebus vitae suae ex quo defunctus est Manasses vir eius.
For to her chastity was joined courage, so that she knew no man all the days of her life from the time Manasseh her husband died.
The two defining qualities of Judith united: moral purity and martial valor.
Erat autem diebus festis procedens cum magna gloria.
On feast days she would go out in procession with great glory.
Mansit autem in domo viri sui annos centum quinque et dimisit abram suam liberam et defuncta est ac sepulta cum viro suo in Bethulia.
She lived in her husband's house for one hundred and five years, freed her maidservant, and died and was buried with her husband in Bethulia.
Manumission of the faithful companion — a final act of justice and generosity.
Luxitque illam omnis populus diebus septem.
All the people mourned her for seven days.
In omni autem spatio vitae eius non fuit qui perturbaret Israhel et post mortem eius annis multis.
Throughout the whole span of her life, and for many years after her death, no one troubled Israel.
Dies autem victoriae huius festivitatis ab Hebraeis in numero sanctorum dierum accipitur et colitur a Iudaeis ex illo tempore usque in praesentem diem.
The day of this victory's festival is received by the Hebrews in the number of their holy days, and has been observed by the Jews from that time to the present day.
An etiological claim: the book explains the origin of a commemorative feast, similar to Purim's origin story in Esther.