Part 293 (2/2)

4:15. So that even they who offered the holocausts to the Lord, offered the sacrifices to the Lord girded with haircloths, and with ashes upon their head.

4:16. And they all begged of G.o.d with all their heart, that he would visit his people Israel.

Judith Chapter 5

Achior gives Holofernes an account of the people of Israel.

5:1. And it was told Holofernes the general of the army of the a.s.syrians, that the children of Israel prepared themselves to resist, and had shut up the ways of the mountains.

5:2. And he was transported with exceeding great fury and indignation, and he called all the princes of Moab and the leaders of Ammon.

5:3. And he said to them: Tell me what is this people that besetteth the mountains: or what are their cities, and of what sort, and how great: also what is their power, or what is their mult.i.tude: or who is the king over their warfare:

5:4. And why they above all that dwell in the east, have despised us, and have not come out to meet us, that they might receive us with peace?

5:5. Then Achior captain of all the children of Ammon answering, said; If thou vouchsafe, my lord, to hear, I will tell the truth in thy sight concerning this people, that dwelleth in the mountains, and there shall not a false word come out of my mouth.

5:6. This people is of the offspring of the Chaldeans.

5:7. They dwelt first in Mesopotamia, because they would not follow the G.o.ds of their fathers, who were in the land of the Chaldeans.

5:8. Wherefore forsaking the ceremonies of their fathers, which consisted in the wors.h.i.+p of many G.o.ds,

5:9. They wors.h.i.+pped one G.o.d of heaven, who also commanded them to depart from thence, and to dwell in Charan. And when there was a famine over all the land, they went down into Egypt, and there for four hundred years were so multiplied, that the army of them could not be numbered.

5:10. And when the king of Egypt oppressed them, and made slaves of them to labour in clay and brick, in the building of his cities, they cried to their Lord, and he struck the whole land of Egypt with divers plagues.

5:11. And when the Egyptians had cast them out from them, and the plague had ceased from them, and they had a mind to take them again, and bring them back to their service,

5:12. The G.o.d of heaven opened the sea to them in their flight, so that the waters were made to stand firm as a wall on either side, and they walked through the bottom of the sea and pa.s.sed it dry foot.

5:13. And when an innumerable army of the Egyptians pursued after them in that place, they were so overwhelmed with the waters, that there was not one left, to tell what had happened to posterity.

5:14. After they came out of the Red Sea, they abode in the deserts of mount Sina, in which never man could dwell, or son of man rested.

5:15. There bitter fountains were made sweet for them to drink, and for forty years they received food from heaven.

5:16. Wheresoever they went in without bow and arrow, and without s.h.i.+eld and sword, their G.o.d fought for them and overcame.

5:17. And there was no one that triumphed over this people, but when they departed from the wors.h.i.+p of the Lord their G.o.d.

5:18. But as often as beside their own G.o.d, they wors.h.i.+pped any other, they were given to spoil and to the sword, and to reproach.

5:19. And as often as they were penitent for having revolted from the wors.h.i.+p of their G.o.d, the G.o.d of heaven gave them power to resist.

5:20. So they overthrew the king of the Chanaanites, and of the Jebusites, and of the Pherezites, and of the Hethites, and of the Hevites, and of the Amorrhites, and all the mighty ones in Hesebon, and they possessed their lands, and their cities:

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