He called together all his officers … his nobles: Two groups of advisors are mentioned. In the absence of any evidence that they are technical terms for precise groups in Nebuchadnezzar’s court, any terms can be used which indicate the kind of groups that would be involved in a council of state: officers and … nobles, “general staff and senior officers” (Good News Translation), “highest officials and respected leaders” (Contemporary English Version), or “ministers.”

Set forth to them his secret plan: His plan is a secret plan; Good News Translation omits this information, but it should be kept. Good News Translation also rearranges material, combining verses 2 and 3, so that the king reveals “his plan of attack” after the calling, the reporting, and the agreeing. Describing the plan as one “of attack” is not in the Greek text. More likely the plan encompasses all that is in verses 2-4, as well as the king’s whole speech to Holofernes in verses 5-13. It is not a separate plan of attack that could logically be made to follow the other actions of verses 2-3. Translators are urged to follow the ordering of clauses in Revised Standard Version. In some languages, however, it will be necessary to state the content or goal of the plan; for example, “He told them how he secretly planned to destroy all those nations, and recounted….”

Recounted fully with his own lips all the wickedness of the region: This clause in Revised Standard Version is a valiant attempt to make sense of a difficult passage. Good News Translation is doing the same, but renders all the wickedness of the region as “how those countries had betrayed him.” “Betrayed” is the wrong word. It implies these countries had agreed to help him but then let him down. They never allied themselves with him in the first place. The Greek reads literally “he completed all the evil of the land from his mouth.” An alternative attempt, equally valiant, is offered by New Jerusalem Bible: “with his own lips pronounced utter destruction on the entire area.” Traduction œcuménique de la Bible takes the same approach. This is supported by a possible idiomatic parallel in 1 Sam 20.7, 9; 25.17. The Hebrew expression there is “evil is determined.” It could have been used by the author of Judith, and distorted in translation. The New Jerusalem Bible solution certainly adds to the drama of the scene, but the Revised Standard Version solution is more likely since the same verb “completed” is used in the sense of recounted in 2.4 also (translated there “finished setting forth”). Another way to render this clause, then, is: “and he told them again [ recounted] all the evil things those people had done.” The phrase with his own lips will sound unnatural in some languages, and may be dropped.

An alternative translation model for verse 2 is:

• The king called together his highest officials and respected leaders and told them how he secretly planned to destroy all those nations. He then recounted all the evil things that these people had done.

It was decided that every one … should be destroyed: Every one is literally “all flesh,” a fairly common Hebrew idiom, which Traduction œcuménique de la Bible preserves (compare its use in Deut 5.26, Psa 145.21; Isa 40.6; 66.23). Dramatic emphasis could be built into the account here by some such device as “every human being who had not obeyed….” Destroyed is a passive verb. In languages that do not use the passive voice, one may translate verse 3 as follows:

• They all agreed that they must destroy every human being who had not obeyed what the king had commanded them to do.

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.