4. Our cities and their inhabitants are also at your service; come and deal with them as you see fit.”
5. After the spokesmen had reached Holofernes and given him this message,
6. he went down with his forces to the seacoast, stationed garrisons in the fortified cities, and took selected men from them as auxiliaries.
7. The people of these cities and all the inhabitants of the countryside received him with garlands and dancing to the sound of timbrels.
8. But he devastated their whole territory and cut down their sacred groves, for he was allowed to destroy all the gods of the land, so that every nation might worship only Nebuchadnezzar, and all their tongues and tribes should invoke him as a god.
9. At length Holofernes reached Esdraelon in the neighborhood of Dothan, the approach to the main ridge of the Judean mountains;
10. he set up his camp between Geba and Scythopolis, and stayed there a whole month to replenish all the supplies of his forces.