Their cisterns were going dry: Cisterns are tanks for catching and storing rain water. Ancient Palestinian cisterns were cut from bedrock. In regions where the rock was porous limestone, the walls of the cisterns were plastered. The inhabitants are resorting to cisterns now that the Assyrians have cut them off from the fresh water from the springs down below. Were going dry means that there was some water left, but the cisterns would soon dry up. Good News Translation‘s “went dry” is not correct.

They did not have enough water to drink their fill for a single day: Drink their fill means “drink as much as they needed.” Good News Translation moves this clause to the end of the verse and translates it idiomatically: “not a day passed when there was enough water to go around.”

Was measured out to them to drink: In languages that do not have the passive voice, this may be expressed “they [the leaders] carefully measured out the water to make sure that everyone had some to drink.”

An alternative model for this verse is:

• The cisterns in Bethulia were beginning to dry up, so that they [the leaders] measured out the water to make sure that everyone had some to drink, and not a day passed when people had enough to drink.

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.