1. And it was told Holofernes, the chief captain of the host of Asshur, that the children of Israel had prepared for war, and had shut up the passages of the hill country, and had fortified all the tops of the high hills, and had laid impediments in the plains:
2. and he was exceeding angry, and he called all the princes of Moab, and the captains of Ammon, and all the governors of the sea coast,
3. and he said to them, Tell me now, you⌃ sons of Canaan, who is this people, that dwells in the hill country, and what are the cities that they inhabit, and what is the multitude of their host, and wherein is their power and their strength, and what king is set over them, to be the leader of their army;
4. and why have they turned their backs, that they should not come and meet me, more than all that dwell in the west.
5. And Achior, the leader of all the children of Ammon, said to him, Let my lord now hear a word from the mouth of your servant, and I will tell you the truth concerning this people, which dwells in this hill country, near to the place where you dwell: and there shall no lie come out of the mouth of your servant.
6. This people are descended of the Chaldeans:
7. and they sojourned heretofore in Mesopotamia, because they were not minded to follow the gods of their fathers, which were in the land of the Chaldeans.
8. And they departed from the way of their parents, and worshipped the God of heaven, the God whom they knew: and they cast them out from the face of their gods, and they fled into Mesopotamia, and sojourned there many days.
9. And their God commanded them to depart from the place where they sojourned, and to go into the land of Canaan: and they lived there, and were increased with gold and silver, and with exceeding much cattle.
10. And they went down into Egypt, for a famine covered all the land of Canaan; and there they sojourned, until they were grown up; and they became there a great multitude, so that one could not count their nation.
11. And the king of Egypt rose up against them, and dealt subtilly with them, and brought them low, making them to labor in brick, and made them slaves.
12. And they cried to their God, and he struck all the land of Egypt with incurable plagues: and the Egyptians cast them out of their sight.
13. And God dried up the Red sea before them,