1And when the tumult of men that were about the council was ceased, Holofernes the chief captain of the army of Assur said to Achior and all the Moabites before all the company of other nations,

2And who are you, Achior, and the hirelings of Ephraim, that you have prophesied against us as to day, and have said, that we should not make war with the people of Israel, because their God will defend them? and who is God but Nabuchodonosor?

3He will send his power, and will destroy them from the face of the earth, and their God shall not deliver them: but we his servants will destroy them as one man; for they are not able to sustain the power of our horses.

4For with them we will tread them under foot, and their mountains shall be drunken with their blood, and their fields shall be filled with their dead bodies, and their footsteps shall not be able to stand before us, for they shall utterly perish, says king Nabuchodonosor, lord of all the earth: for he said, None of my words shall be in vain.

5And you, Achior, an hireling of Ammon, which have spoken these words in the day of your iniquity, shall see my face no more from this day, until I take vengeance of this nation that came out of Egypt.

6And then shall the sword of my army, and the multitude of them that serve me, pass through your sides, and you shall fall among their slain, when I return.

7Now therefore my servants shall bring you back into the hill country, and shall set you in one of the cities of the passages:

8And you shall not perish, till you be destroyed with them.

9And if you persuade yourself in your mind that they shall be taken, let not your countenance fall: I have spoken it, and none of my words shall be in vain.

10Then Holofernes commanded his servants, that waited in his tent, to take Achior, and bring him to Bethulia, and deliver him into the hands of the children of Israel.

11So his servants took him, and brought him out of the camp into the plain, and they went from the midst of the plain into the hill country, and came to the fountains that were under Bethulia.

12And when the men of the city saw them, they took up their weapons, and went out of the city to the top of the hill: and every man that used a sling kept them from coming up by casting of stones against them.

13Nevertheless having gotten privily under the hill, they bound Achior, and cast him down, and left him at the foot of the hill, and returned to their lord.

14But the Israelites descended from their city, and came to him, and loosed him, and brought him to Bethulia, and presented him to the governors of the city:

15Which were in those days Ozias the son of Micha, of the tribe of Simeon, and Chabris the son of Gothoniel, and Charmis the son of Melchiel.

16And they called together all the ancients of the city, and all their youth ran together, and their women, to the assembly, and they set Achior in the midst of all their people. Then Ozias asked him of that which was done.

17And he answered and declared to them the words of the council of Holofernes, and all the words that he had spoken in the midst of the princes of Assur, and whatever Holofernes had spoken proudly against the house of Israel.

18Then the people fell down and worshipped God, and cried to God. saying,

19O Lord God of heaven, behold their pride, and pity the low estate of our nation, and look upon the face of those that are sanctified to you this day.

20Then they comforted Achior, and praised him greatly.

21And Ozias took him out of the assembly to his house, and made a feast to the elders; and they called on the God of Israel all that night for help.