18. Every soldier received plenty of rations and a large payment of gold and silver from the royal treasury.
19. Then Holofernes and his entire army set out, advancing ahead of King Nebuchadnezzar. The chariots, the cavalry, and the infantry marched out to overrun the entire western region.
20. Other troops went with them. There were so many that it was impossible to count them — they were like a swarm of locusts or like grains of sand in the desert.
21. Three days after they had left the city of Nineveh, they reached the plains round Bectileth near the mountains north of Cilicia, where they set up camp.
22. From there Holofernes advanced into the hill-country with his entire army, his infantry, cavalry, and chariots.
23. He totally destroyed the countries of Libya and Lydia, then plundered all the people of Rassis and the Ishmaelites who lived on the edge of the desert, south of the land of the Chelleans.