11
But if they refuse, your eye shall not spare and you shall hand them over to slaughter and plunder throughout your whole region.
12
For as I live, and by the power of my kingdom, what I have spoken my hand will execute.
13
And you -- take care not to transgress any of your sovereign's commands, but be sure to carry them out just as I have ordered you; and do not delay about it."
14
So Holofernes left the presence of his master, and called together all the commanders, generals, and officers of the Assyrian army,
15
and mustered the picked troops by divisions as his lord had ordered him to do, one hundred and twenty thousand of them, together with twelve thousand archers on horseback,
16
and he organized them as a great army is marshaled for a campaign.
17
He collected a vast number of camels and asses and mules for transport, and innumerable sheep and oxen and goats for provision;
18
also plenty of food for every man, and a huge amount of gold and silver from the royal palace.
19
So he set out with his whole army, to go ahead of King Nebuchadnezzar and to cover the whole face of the earth to the west with their chariots and horsemen and picked troops of infantry.
20
Along with them went a mixed crowd like a swarm of locusts, like the dust of the earth -- a multitude that could not be counted.
21
They marched for three days from Nineveh to the plain of Bectileth, and camped opposite Bectileth near the mountain which is to the north of Upper Cilicia.