Judith 2:13-23

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.
22 From there Holofernes took his whole army, his infantry, cavalry, and chariots, and went up into the hill country
23 and ravaged Put and Lud, and plundered all the people of Rassis and the Ishmaelites who lived along the desert, south of the country of the Chelleans.
Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1952 [2nd edition, 1971] by the 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.