Judea Prepares for the Attack

¹The Israelites throughout Judea heard that Holofernes, the commander serving Nebuchadnezzar, king of the Assyrians, had plundered all the other nations and destroyed their temples.

²As he approached, they became terrified for Jerusalem and for the Temple of the Lord their God,

³for they had only recently returned from captivity. (All the people of Judea had recently resettled the city and rededicated the sacred vessels and the altar and the Temple, all of which had been defiled.)

⁴So the Israelites in Judea sent word to every district of Samaria and to Kona, Beth-horon, Belmain, Jericho, Choba, Aesora, and the Salem Valley.

⁵They occupied all the high hilltops and fortified the villages there. They also stored up food to prepare for war, for their fields had recently been harvested.

⁶Joakim, the high priest, was in Jerusalem at the time and wrote to the people of Bethulia and Betomesthaim, towns facing Esdraelon across the plain near Dothan.

⁷He told them to guard the mountain passes, for it was only through these passes that Judea could be invaded. It would be easy to stop any forces trying to enter because the passage was narrow, wide enough for only two soldiers to pass at a time.

⁸The Israelites did as they had been ordered by the high priest Joakim and the high council of all the people of Israel, which was in session at Jerusalem.[#4:8 Greek the senate.]

⁹All the people cried out earnestly to God and humbled themselves by intense fasting.

¹⁰All the men, their wives, their children, and every resident foreigner (both hired workers and slaves) put on sackcloth to show they were in mourning. They even put sackcloth on their livestock.

¹¹And all the Israelite men, women, and children living in Jerusalem lay face down in front of the Temple, and with ashes on their heads, they spread out their sackcloth before the Lord.

¹²They even draped the altar with sackcloth. They cried out together, earnestly asking the God of Israel not to allow their infants to be carried off, their wives to be taken captive, their towns to be destroyed, and the sanctuary to be desecrated. They knew the Gentiles around them would be overjoyed at their defeat.

¹³The Lord heard their prayers and acknowledged their distress—for the people fasted many days throughout Judea and in Jerusalem before the sanctuary of the Lord Almighty.

¹⁴Joakim the high priest and all the priests who ministered before the Lord wore sackcloth as they offered the people’s daily burnt offerings, offerings to fulfill vows, and freewill offerings.

¹⁵With ashes on their turbans, they earnestly called on the Lord, asking him to look kindly on the people of Israel.