No one spoke ill of her may be rendered “no one ever said anything bad about her” (Good News Translation, Contemporary English Version).

For she feared God with great devotion: “She was a very religious woman” (Good News Translation) expresses the meaning of the literal “she feared God greatly.” New English Bible describes her as “a very devout woman”; another possible model is “Judith served God faithfully” (compare verse 31).

The relationship expressed by the connector for is lost in Good News Translation. According to the Greek text, the reason “no one ever said anything bad about Judith” was that “she was a very religious woman.” Good News Translation connects the first clause of the verse to the preceding verse, rather than the following clause. The correct relationship may be expressed as follows: “No one ever said anything bad about Judith, for she was a very religious woman.” Another way of achieving the right connection would be to reverse the clauses; for example, “Judith was very religious, and no one ever said anything bad about her” or “Judith was such a religious woman that no one ever said anything bad about her.”

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.