2
he was very angry. So he called together all the princes of Moab and the commanders of Ammon and all the governors of the coastland,
3
and said to them, "Tell me, you Canaanites, what people is this that lives in the hill country? What cities do they inhabit? How large is their army, and in what does their power or strength consist? Who rules over them as king, leading their army?
4
And why have they alone, of all who live in the west, refused to come out and meet me?"
5
Then Achior, the leader of all the Ammonites, said to him, "Let my lord now hear a word from the mouth of your servant, and I will tell you the truth about this people that dwells in the nearby mountain district. No falsehood shall come from your servant's mouth.
6
This people is descended from the Chaldeans.
7
At one time they lived in Mesopotamia, because they would not follow the gods of their fathers who were in Chaldea.
8
For they had left the ways of their ancestors, and they worshiped the God of heaven, the God they had come to know; hence they drove them out from the presence of their gods; and they fled to Mesopotamia, and lived there for a long time.
9
Then their God commanded them to leave the place where they were living and go to the land of Canaan. There they settled, and prospered, with much gold and silver and very many cattle.
10
When a famine spread over Canaan they went down to Egypt and lived there as long as they had food; and there they became a great multitude -- so great that they could not be counted.
11
So the king of Egypt became hostile to them; he took advantage of them and set them to making bricks, and humbled them and made slaves of them.
12
Then they cried out to their God, and he afflicted the whole land of Egypt with incurable plagues; and so the Egyptians drove them out of their sight.