They and their wives and their children and their cattle and every resident alien and hired laborer and purchased slave: For a comment on the translation of cattle, see Tob 1.6. Resident alien refers to a foreigner residing in their country. Slaves were people who worked for their owners for no pay.

They all girded themselves with sackcloth: Sackcloth was a coarse cloth appropriate for making sacks, but it was worn on the body as a sign of mourning, repentance, or distress. Here the Greek says that the people put the sackcloth “on their loins.” Revised Standard Version reflects this with girded themselves, and New Revised Standard Version with “they all put sackcloth around their waists” (similarly New Jerusalem Bible). Wearing the sackcloth was a symbolic gesture, so it probably did not cover the whole body. New Revised Standard Version suggests this, and translators are on solid ground, textually and culturally, to picture it this way. It may seem strange to have “livestock” wearing sackcloth, but this is mentioned also in Jonah 3.8. The Greeks put garlands on sacrificial animals (Acts 14.13), and people around the world are known to attire animals, such as cattle, horses, elephants, camels, with festive ornamentation on occasions of celebration, so it is not necessarily a comic touch in either Jonah or Judith for people to put signs of sorrow on their animals. Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation seem to indicate that the livestock put the sackcloth on themselves. Contemporary English Version solves this problem with:

• Then everyone in the country wrapped sackcloth around their waists—men, women, and children, as well as foreigners and slaves and hired workers. They even put sackcloth on their livestock!

Quoted with permission from Bullard, Roger A. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Judith. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2001. For this and other handbooks for translators see here.