31
"If your parents or children were present, I would have prepared them to be a rich feast for the savage animals instead of the Jews, who give me no ground for complaint and have exhibited to an extraordinary degree a full and firm loyalty to my ancestors.
32
In fact you would have been deprived of life instead of these, if it were not for an affection arising from our nurture in common and your usefulness."
33
So Hermon suffered an unexpected and dangerous threat, and his eyes wavered and his face fell.
34
The king's Friends one by one sullenly slipped away and dismissed the assembled people to their own occupations.
35
Then the Jews, on hearing what the king had said, praised the manifest Lord God, King of kings, since this also was his aid that they had received.
New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.