The Koine Bible

Judgments came to them from other cities.

Seeing a beautiful woman in appearance, the wife of their brother, one of the sons of Israel, named Susanna, daughter of Hilkiah, wife of Joakim, walking in her husband’s garden at evening, and desiring her.

Their mind, and they turned aside their eyes so as not to look toward heaven nor remember righteous judgments.

Both were pierced with desire for her, and each did not disclose to the other the evil that held them concerning her, nor did the woman know this matter.

As dawn came, they would come and secretly observe one another, hastening to see which of them would appear to her first and speak with her.

Behold, she was walking as usual, and one of the elders had come, and behold, the other arrived; and one questioned the other, saying, Why did you go out so early without taking me along? And they confessed to one another, each his own desire.

One said to the other, “Let us go to her”; and having agreed together, they approached her and were coercing her.

The Judean woman said to them, “I know that if I do this, it is death for me, and if I do not do it, I will not escape your hands.”

But I, having done none of this, should fall into your hands rather than sin before the Lord.

But the lawless men turned back, threatening among themselves and lying in wait so that they might kill her; and coming to the assembly of the city where she dwelt, all the sons of Israel who were there sat together.

The two elders and judges rose and said, Send for Susanna, daughter of Chelkias, who is the wife of Joakim. And they immediately summoned her.

And the woman came with her father and her mother, and her sons and her maidservants, being five hundred in number, came also; and Susanna’s children were four.

And the woman was very delicate

The lawless men commanded that she be uncovered, so that they might be filled with desire for her beauty.

All who were with her and all who knew her were weeping.

But the elders and judges laid their hands upon her head.

But her heart trusted in the Lord her God, and, looking up, she wept within herself, saying

O eternal God, who knows all things before their coming to be, you know that I did not do what these lawless men have wickedly devised against me; and the Lord heard her supplication.

But the two elders said, “We were walking in the garden of her husband.”

Going around the stadium, we saw her resting with a man, and standing there we watched them speaking with one another.

They themselves did not know that we had stood there; then we said to one another, saying, Let us learn who these are.

Having approached, we recognized her, but the young man fled, having been covered.

But having seized her, we asked her, “Who is the man?”

He did not tell us who this one was; we testify to these things. And the whole assembly believed them, since they were elders and judges of the people.

Behold, an angel of the Lord, as she was being led out to perish, and the angel gave, as he had been commanded, a spirit of understanding to Daniel, who was young.

But Daniel stopped the crowd and, standing in their midst, said: “Thus, foolish sons of Israel, without examining and without knowing the clear truth, have you condemned a daughter of Israel?”

Now separate them for me from one another, far apart, so that I may examine them.

And when they had separated, Daniel said to the assembly, “Now do not look to them because these are elders, saying, ‘They will surely not lie’; but I will question them according to what occurs to me.” And he called one of them, and they brought the elder to the younger, and Daniel said to him, “Listen, listen, you aged in evil days; now your sins have come upon you, which you committed before.

to hear and to judge judgments bringing death, and you condemned the innocent, but you released the guilty, while the Lord says, “You shall not kill the innocent and righteous.”

Then under what tree and in what part of the garden did you see them being together? And he said, “Under a mastic tree.”

But the younger one said, You have lied rightly against your own life, for the angel of the Lord will split your life today.

Having removed him, he said to bring the other to him; and to this one also he said, Why is your offspring perverted like Sidon’s and not like Judah’s? Beauty has deceived you, the defiled desire.

Thus you acted toward the daughters of Israel, and they, being afraid, conversed with you; but the daughter of Judah did not endure to bear your disease in lawlessness.

So tell me, under what tree and in what place of the garden did you catch them conversing with one another? And he said, Under a holm oak.

Daniel said, Sinner, now the angel of the Lord stands holding the sword until the people utterly destroy you, so that he may saw you in two.

The whole assembly shouted against the younger one, because from his own mouth he had proved them both false witnesses; and as the law decrees, they did to them as they had plotted wickedly against their sister. And they silenced them, and taking them out, they threw them into a ravine. Then the angel of the Lord cast fire through their midst, and innocent blood was saved on that day.

May this be for the younger ones, beloved of Jacob, in their innocence; and may we also be preserved for strong, younger sons, for younger ones will be godly, and there will be in them a spirit of knowledge and understanding forever and ever.