Judith 3

The Coastlands Surrender

1So they sent messengers to him with words of peace, saying: 2“Look, we are the servants of Nebuchadnezzar the great king, and we lie here at your feet. Use us as you find good. 3Here are our farmsteads, all our ground, every field of wheat, our flocks and our herds, and every pen beside our tents — all laid out in front of you. Use them as you please. 4And here are our towns and everyone living in them: they are your slaves. Come, meet them however seems good in your own eyes.” 5The men arrived before Holofernes and gave him this report, word for word. 6Then he came down to the coast with his army, put garrisons in the walled towns, and drew picked men out of them as auxiliaries. 7They welcomed him, they and all the countryside around them, with garlands and dancing and tambourines. 8But he razed all their territory and cut their sacred groves to the ground, for he had been charged to wipe out every god of the earth, so that all nations should serve him alone, Nebuchadnezzar, and every tongue and tribe should call on him as a god. 9Then he came up in front of Esdraelon, near Dothan, which faces the great jagged ridge of Judea, 10and they pitched camp between Geba and Scythopolis. He stayed there a full month to collect the whole baggage train of his army.