Judith 1

1 In the twelfth year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, who reigned over the Assyrians in Nineveh, the great city — in the days of Arphaxad, who reigned over the Medes in Ecbatana — [a] 2 Arphaxad built walls around Ecbatana out of cut stone, stones four and a half feet thick and nine feet long; and he made the wall a hundred and five feet high and seventy-five feet across. [b] 3 He set its towers over the city gates, a hundred and fifty feet high, and laid their foundations ninety feet across. 4 And he made its gates — gates raised to a height of a hundred and five feet, and sixty feet across — for the marching out of his mighty forces and the drawing up of his foot soldiers. [c]

5 In those days King Nebuchadnezzar made war on King Arphaxad in the great plain, the plain that lies in the territory of Ragau. 6 And all who lived in the hill country came to meet him, and all who lived along the Euphrates and the Tigris and the Hydaspes, and on the plains of Arioch king of the Elymeans. Many nations came together for the battle line of the sons of Cheleoud. [d]

7 Then Nebuchadnezzar king of the Assyrians sent word to all who lived in Persia, and to all who lived toward the west — those living in Cilicia and Damascus and Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon — and to all who lived along the seacoast, 8 and to those among the nations of Carmel and Gilead, and upper Galilee, and the great plain of Esdrelon, [e] 9 and to all who were in Samaria and its towns, and beyond the Jordan as far as Jerusalem and Betane and Chelous and Kadesh and the river of Egypt, and Tahpanhes and Ramesses and all the land of Goshen, [f]

10 and on past Tanis and Memphis, and to all who lived in Egypt, as far as the borders of Ethiopia. 11 But all who lived in that whole land treated the word of Nebuchadnezzar king of the Assyrians as nothing, and they did not go with him to the war, because they were not afraid of him. In their eyes he stood there as one man alone, and they turned his messengers back empty-handed and shamed to the face. [g]

12 Then Nebuchadnezzar was furious with all that land, and he swore by his throne and his kingdom that he would take revenge on all the territory of Cilicia and Damascus and Syria, and would kill with his sword everyone living in the land of Moab, and the sons of Ammon, and all Judah, and everyone in Egypt, as far as the borders of the two seas. 13 And in the seventeenth year he drew up his forces against King Arphaxad, and he prevailed in his battle; he overthrew the whole army of Arphaxad, and all his cavalry, and all his chariots.

14 He became master of Arphaxad’s cities and came as far as Ecbatana, and he seized the towers and plundered its streets and turned its splendor into disgrace. 15 And he took Arphaxad in the mountains of Ragau and ran him through with his spears, and destroyed him utterly, to that day. [h] 16 Then he turned back with them, he and all his mixed force, a very great crowd of fighting men; and there he took his ease and feasted, he and his army, for a hundred and twenty days. [i]