When it is said
Pray it when you are blamed for something you did not do, and the people who should listen have already made up their minds.
Susanna prayed it aloud, in front of the crowd that had just condemned her.
Where it comes from
Author known
Condemned on a lie
Susanna lived in Babylon and feared the Lord. Two elders who served as judges caught her alone in her garden and demanded that she sleep with them, threatening to swear that they had found her with a young man. She refused, because she would rather fall into their hands than sin before the Lord. The next day the people believed the elders and condemned her to death.
Cleared the same day
The Lord heard her. As she was led away to die, a young man named Daniel cried out against the verdict and had the two elders questioned apart. One said he had seen her with the young man under a mastic tree, the other under an oak. Her life was saved that same day, and her family praised God that nothing shameful was found in her.
Part of the Book of Daniel
In the Greek Bible, Susanna’s story belongs to the Book of Daniel. The Orthodox Church counts it as Scripture because it was in the Septuagint, the Greek Bible in use in the time of Jesus. Protestants do not count it as part of the Bible.
In Greek
ὁ Θεὸς ὁ αἰώνιος, ὁ τῶν κρυπτῶν γνώστης,
ὁ εἰδὼς τὰ πάντα πρὶν γενέσεως αὐτῶν,
σὺ ἐπίστασαι ὅτι ψευδῆ μου κατεμαρτύρησαν·
καὶ ἰδοὺ ἀποθνήσκω μὴ ποιήσασα μηδὲν
ὧν οὗτοι ἐπονηρεύσαντο κατʼ ἐμοῦ.