Books Jesus Read

84

Books Jesus Read

Returning to Nineveh with a host of captured soldiers, he and his forces recovered and feasted for 120 days. Now on the eighteenth year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, on the twenty-second day of the first month, a discussion arose in the king’s palace. To this he summoned his officers and nobles, reminding them of the disdain with which the western regions had treated his summons to war. The council agreed that all who had disobeyed the king’s command must be destroyed. So, the king revealed to them his plan for exacting his revenge. Nebuchadnezzar then called forth Holofernes, the general of his forces, second only to the king in authority, and gave him this charge: “Thus says the Great King, the lord of the whole earth: when you leave my presence, take with you men confident in their strength, to the number of 120,000 foot soldiers and twelve thousand men on horseback. Go and attack all the western regions because they disobeyed my orders. Tell them to prepare an offering of earth and water. 3 For I am coming against them in my anger and the feet of my armies will cover the whole face of the earth. I will hand them over to be plundered by my troops, till their wounded fill their valleys and every brook and river overflow with the blood of their dead. I will lead them away captive to the ends of the earth. Go and seize their territories and hold them for me till the day of their punishment. If they fight against you, spare none of them but slaughter and plunder them all. For as I live, and by the power of my kingdom, what I have spoken my hand will execute. As for you, Holofernes,

3 An offering of earth and water – a symbolic offering required of a conquered kingdom.