12
When this was done, the king, hearing that their brethren in the city often went out and lamented the melancholy distress of these victims,
13
was full of rage, and commanded that they should be carefully subjected to the same (and not one whit milder) treatment.
14
The whole nation was now to be registered. Every individual was to be specified by name; not for that hard servitude of labour which we have a little before mentioned, but that he might expose them to the before-mentioned tortures; and finally, in the short space of a day, might extirpate them by his cruelties.
15
The registering of these men was carried on cruelly, zealously, assiduously, from the rising of the sun to its going down, and was not brought to an end in forty days.
16
The king was filled with great and constant joy, and celebrated banquets before the temple idols. His erring heart, far from the truth, and his profane mouth, gave glory to idols, deaf and incapable of speaking or aiding, and uttered unworthy speech against the Greatest God.
17
At the end of the above-mentioned interval of time, the registrars brought word to the king that the multitude of the Jews was too great for registration,
18
inasmuch as there were many still left in the land, of whom some were in inhabited houses, and others were scattered about in various places; so that all the commanders in Egypt were insufficient for the work.
19
The king threatened them, and charged them with taking bribes, in order to contrive the escape of the Jews: but was clearly convinced of the truth of what had been said.
20
They said, and proved, that paper and pens had failed them for the carrying out of their purpose.
21
Now this was an active interference of the unconquerable Providence which assisted the Jews from heaven.