Judith 5

Achior Tells Holofernes Who This People Is

1Word reached Holofernes, commander in chief of the forces of Asshur, that the Israelites had made ready for war: they had sealed off the passes through the hill country, walled every high summit, and set traps down in the plains. 2He flew into a violent rage, and he summoned every chieftain of Moab, the generals of Ammon, and all the satraps of the coastland, 3and said to them: “Explain this to me, you sons of Canaan. Who are these people settled in the hill country? What towns do they inhabit? How large is their army? Where do their power and their strength lie? Who has risen as king at their head, leading their forces? 4And why, alone of all who live in the west, have they turned their backs and refused to come out and meet me?” 5Then Achior, the leader of all the Ammonites, said to him: “Let my lord hear a word out of the mouth of your servant. I will tell you the truth about this people who live in these hills, right beside where you are camped, and no lie will come out of your servant’s mouth. 6These people are descended from the Chaldeans. 7Once they lived as strangers in Mesopotamia, because they had refused to walk behind the gods of their ancestors in the country of the Chaldeans. 8They stepped off the road of their forebears and bowed to the God of heaven, a God they had come to know. So they were driven out from before their gods, and they ran to Mesopotamia and lived there as strangers a long while. 9Then their God told them to leave the land where they were living as strangers and go to the land of Canaan. They settled there and grew rich in gold and silver and in enormous herds. 10They went down to Egypt when famine covered the face of the land of Canaan, and they lived there as strangers for as long as there was food. There they became a great multitude — their kind could not be counted. 11So the king of Egypt rose against them. He outwitted them with forced labor and brickmaking; he ground them down and reduced them to slaves. 12They cried out to their God, and he struck the entire land of Egypt with blows that had no cure. And the Egyptians drove them out of their sight. 13God dried up the Red Sea in front of them, 14and led them along the road to Sinai and Kadesh-barnea, and they drove out everyone living in the wilderness. 15They made their home in Amorite country and by their own strength wiped out every last man of Heshbon; then they crossed the Jordan and took the whole hill country for their inheritance. 16They drove out before them the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Jebusite, the Shechemite, and all the Girgashites, and they lived in that land a long while. 17So long as they did not sin in their God’s sight, good things stayed with them — for a God who hates injustice is with them. 18But when they turned aside from the way he had appointed for them, they were shattered in war after war, again and again, and led away captive into a land not their own. Their God’s temple was leveled to the ground, and their towns were taken by their enemies. 19And now they have turned back to their God. They have come up out of the scattering where they were scattered, they have taken hold of Jerusalem, where their holy place stands, and they have resettled the hill country, since it was lying empty. 20So now, my master and lord: if there is some fault of ignorance in this people, if they are sinning against their God, and we can see that this stumbling block is among them, then let us march up and make war on them. 21But if their nation is guilty of no lawlessness, then let my lord pass them by — or their Lord and their God will hold his shield over them, and we will be a laughingstock before the whole earth.” 22When Achior had finished saying this, the whole crowd ringing the council tent grumbled, and the grandees of Holofernes, with everyone who lived on the coast and in Moab, said he should be hacked to pieces. 23“We are not going to be afraid of Israelites! Look at them: a people with no army, no power to hold a battle line. 24So let us march up. They will be one mouthful for your whole host, Holofernes, our master.”