THE BOOK OF JUDITH
| IN THE twelfth year of the reign of) | 1 |
Nebuchadnezzar, who ruled over
the Assyrians in the great city of
Nineveh, in the days when Arphaxad ruled over the Medes in Ecba| tana, Arphaxad built around Ecbatana | 2 |
walls of hewn stones four and a half
feet wide and nine feet long. He built
the walls a hundred and five feet high| and seventy-five feet wide, and at the | 3 |
gates he built towers a hundred and
fifty feet high, with foundations ninety| feet wide; and he made its gates, gates | 4 |
that rose to a height of a hundred and
five feet, and were sixty feet wide, so
that his host of warriors could march
out and his infantry could form. So in
those days King Nebuchadnezzar made
war on King Arphaxad in the Great
Plain; this plain is on the borders of| Ragae. He was joined by all the in- | 6 |
habitants of the hill country and all
who lived along the Euphrates and Tigris and Hydaspes, and on the plains
of Arioch, king of Elymais, and many
nations joined the army of the Chaldeans.| Then Nebuchadnezzar, king of As- | 7 |
syria, sent to all the inhabitants of
Persia and to all who lived toward the
west, who were settled in Cilicia and Damascus and the Lebanon and the| Antilebanon, and to all who lived along | 8 |
the seacoast, and to the inhabitants of
Carmel and Gilead that were heathen,
and to Upper Galilee and the great| plain of Esdraelon, and to all that were | 9 |
in Samaria and its towns, and beyond Jordan as far as Jerusalem and Betane
and Chelous and Kadesh, and the river
of Egypt, Tahpanhes and Raamses and| all the land of Goshen, until you pass | 10 |
Tanis and Memphis, and to all who
lived in Egypt, until you reach the| borders of Ethiopia. But all the in- | 11 |
habitants of the land paid no attention
to the command of Nebuchadnezzar,
king of Assyria, and would not go with
him to the war, for they were not afraid
of him, but regarded him as just a single man, and they sent his messengers
back disappointed and in disgrace.| Then Nebuchadnezzar was very all | 12 |
gry with that whole country, and he
swore by his throne and his kingdom
that he would certainly take vengeance
upon all the regions of Cilicia, Damascus, and Syria, and kill with the sword
all the inhabitants of the land of Moab
and the Ammonites and all Judea and
everybody in Egypt, until you come to| the coasts of the two seas. So in the | 13 |
seventeenth year he made war on King Arphaxad, and he overcame him and
put Arphaxad's whole army and all his
cavalry and all his chariots to flight,| and he took possession of his cities and | 14 |
reached Ecbatana and took its towers
and plundered its bazaars and turned| its glory into shame. Then he took | 15 |
Arphaxad captive among the mountains of Ragae, and struck him down
with his spears and utterly destroyed| him, unto this day. Then he returned | 16 |
with the spoils and all his motley
army, a very great body of soldiers,
and there he and his army took their
ease and feasted for a hundred and
twenty days.| In the eighteenth year of his reign, | 2 |
on the twenty second day of the first
month, it was proposed in the palace of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Assyria, to
take vengeance on all the land, just as| he had said. He called together all his | 2 |
ministers and all his nobles and set
before them his secret purpose and
fully related all the wickedness of the| land with his own lips, and they de | 3 |
creed that all who had not obeyed the
command the king had uttered should| be destroyed. When he had complet | 4 |
ed his plan, Nebuchadnezzar, king of
Assyria, summoned Holofernes, the
general of his army, who was second
to himself, and said to him,| "Thus says the Great King, the Lord | 5 |
of all the earth: When you go from
my presence, you must take with you
men confident in their strength to the
number of a hundred and twenty
thousand infantry and twelve thou| sand mounted men, and you must go | 6 |
out to attack all the western country,-55-
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Publication information:
Book title: The Complete Bible:An American Translation.
Contributors: J. M. Powis Smith - Translator, Edgar J. Goodspeed - Translator.
Publisher: University of Chicago Press.
Place of publication: Chicago.
Publication year: 1939.
Page number: 55.
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