15. So the process of drawing up a list of these people was carried out with cruel eagerness and intense diligence from the rising of the sun until its setting, coming to an end, though still incomplete, after forty days.
16. Filled with constant joy, the king organized banquets at the sites of all his idols. With a mind that had strayed far from the truth and with a polluted mouth, he praised objects that were deaf and unable to speak or give aid, but he spoke improper words against the supreme God.
17. At the end of the forty days, the clerks reported to the king that they were no longer able to complete the task of drawing up a list of all the Jews because of their countless number.
18. Though the majority were still in the country, some still in their homes, and some even on-site, the job had become impossible for all the generals in Egypt.
19. After the king had threatened the clerks severely, claiming that they had accepted money to arrange a plan of escape, he came to be convinced
20. when they explained and offered proof that both the paper supply and the reed pens that they were using had already run out.
21. But this happened by the invincible providence of the one who was giving the Jews help from heaven.