Judith 3:7-9

New Catholic Bible

⁷ The people of these cities and all the inhabitants of the surrounding countryside welcomed him with garlands and dancing to the sound of tambourines.^{[a] 8} Despite this, he demolished all their sanctuaries and cut down their sacred groves, thereby carrying out his commission to destroy all the gods of the land so that all the nations would worship Nebuchadnezzar alone and that only he would be invoked as a god by people of every tongue and tribe. ⁹ Finally, Holofernes advanced toward Esdraelon, in the neighborhood of Dothan, facing the great ridge of Judea.