Judith 1

Nebuchadnezzar and the King of the Medes

1In the twelfth year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, who was king of the Assyrians in Nineveh, the great city, and in the days of Arphaxad, who was king of the Medes in Ecbatana — 2he ringed Ecbatana with walls of dressed stone, blocks three cubits thick and six cubits long; he raised the rampart seventy cubits high and fifty cubits across. 3Over its gates he set towers a hundred cubits high, laid on foundations sixty cubits wide. 4He made its gates tower up seventy cubits and spread forty cubits wide, so that his massed warriors could march out and his infantry form up. 5In those days King Nebuchadnezzar went to war against King Arphaxad on the great plain — the plain that lies in the district of Ragau. 6Everyone who lived in the highlands rallied to him, and everyone settled along the Euphrates, the Tigris, and the Hydaspes, and on the plains of Arioch king of the Elymeans. Many nations gathered into the battle line of the sons of Cheleoud. 7Then Nebuchadnezzar king of the Assyrians sent word to everyone living in Persia, and to everyone living toward the sunset — those in Cilicia and Damascus, in Lebanon and Antilebanon, and everyone settled along the coast; 8to the peoples of Carmel and Gilead, to Upper Galilee and to Esdraelon, the broad plain; 9to all who were in Samaria and its towns, and beyond the Jordan as far as Jerusalem, and to Betane, Chelous, Kadesh, the river of Egypt, Tahpanhes, Rameses, and the whole land of Goshen — 10on past Tanis and Memphis, and to everyone settled in Egypt, right up to the frontier of Ethiopia. 11But in all those lands the inhabitants treated the word of Nebuchadnezzar king of the Assyrians as worthless. They would not join him for the war; they had no fear of him, for in their eyes he was one man and no more. They sent his messengers back empty-handed, with shame on their faces. 12At this Nebuchadnezzar flew into a rage against that whole region, and he swore by his throne and his kingdom that he would take vengeance on every border of Cilicia, of Damascus, and of Syria, and put to the sword every inhabitant of the land of Moab, the Ammonites, all Judea, and everyone in Egypt, as far as the shores of the two seas. 13In the seventeenth year he drew up his forces against King Arphaxad and won the day: he overturned Arphaxad’s entire army, all his cavalry, and every one of his chariots. 14He took possession of his cities and pressed on to Ecbatana, seized its towers, looted its streets, and turned its splendor into disgrace. 15He caught Arphaxad himself in the mountains of Ragau, ran him through with his javelins, and made an end of him that very day. 16Then he turned back with them — he and his whole mixed host, an immense crowd of fighting men — and there he and his force idled and feasted a hundred and twenty days.