Judith 3

Wycliffe Bible

3 Then the kings and princes of all (the) cities and provinces, that is, of Syria, of Mesopotamia, and Celosyria (or Greater Syria), and of Lebanon, and of Cilicia, sent their messengers, [or their legates], (or their ambassadors). And when they came to Holofernes, they said,

² Thine indignation cease about us [or Cease thine indignation about us]; for it is better, that we live and serve Nebuchadnezzar, the great king, and to be subject to thee, than that we die, and suffer with our perishing the harms of our servage, or our thralldom (or our servitude), that is, suffer more harms then is servage.

³ Each city of ours [or All our cities], and all our possession(s), all our mountains, and little hills, and our fields, and droves of oxen, and flocks of sheep, and of goats, and of horses, and of camels, and all our riches and our meines (or our households) be in thy sight;

⁴ (yea), all things be under thy law.

⁵ Also we and our children be thy servants.

⁶ Come thou and be thou a peaceable lord to us, and use thou our service, as it pleaseth thee.

⁷ Then Holofernes came down from the hills, with knights in great strength (or force), and he got each city, and each man inhabiting the land/and each man that dwelled in that land. [Then he came down from the hills, with horsemen in great virtue, and wielded each city, and all men dwelling in the land.]

⁸ And of all the cities he took to him helpers (And from all of the cities he got himself helpers), strong men and chosen to battle.

⁹ And so (the) great dread of Holofernes lay [or fell] upon all (the) provinces, (so) that the dwellers of all (the) cities, and the princes and men of honour, went together out with their peoples to meet him coming towards them [or went out into meeting to him coming],

¹⁰ and received him with crowns and lamps, and they led dances before him with pipes and tympans. [receiving him with crowns and lamps, leading dances in (or with) trumps and timbrels.]

¹¹ Nevertheless they doing these things might not assuage the fierceness of his heart;

¹² for why both he destroyed their cities, and hewed down their [maumet] woods.

¹³ For king Nebuchadnezzar had commanded to him, that he should destroy all the gods of (the) earth, that is, that he alone should be said god of all these nations, that might be made subject/s by the power of Holofernes. [Forsooth king Nebuchadnezzar had commanded to him, that all the gods of the land he should outlaw, that is, that he god alone were said of these nations, that might be under-yoked by the might of Holofernes.]

¹⁴ And Holofernes passed over all Celosyria (or through all Greater Syria), and all the country of Appanie, and all Mesopotamia, and he came to (the) Idumeans in the land of Geba;

¹⁵ and he took the cities of them, and dwelled there by thirty days, in which days he commanded all the host of his power to be gathered together.