Lost Books of the Bible (106 page)

33 After this cry he again repeated a shout, and all the men who surrounded Judah on the top of the wall were terrified;  they each threw his sword from his hand at the sound of Judah's shouting and his tremor and fled.

34 Judah took the swords which had fallen from their hands and he fought with them and killed twenty of their men on the wall.

35 About eighty men and women still ascended the wall from the city and they all surrounded Judah, and the Lord impressed the fear of Judah in their hearts so that they were unable to approach him.

36 And Jacob and all who were with him drew the bow from under the wall, and they killed ten men on the wall;  they fell below the wall in front of Jacob and his sons.

37 And the people on the wall seeing that twenty of their men had fallen still ran toward Judah with drawn swords, but they could not approach him for they were greatly terrified at Judah's strength.

38 And one of their mighty men whose name was Arud approached to strike Judah on the head with his sword, when Judah hastily put his shield to his head;  the sword hit the shield and it was split in two.

39 This mighty man after he had struck Judah ran for his life at the fear of Judah, and his feet slipped on the wall and he fell among the sons of Jacob who were below the wall, and the sons of Jacob struck him and killed him.

40 And Judah's head pained him from the blow of the powerful man; Judah had nearly died from it.

41 And Judah cried out on the wall owing to the pain produced by the blow, when Dan heard him, and his anger burned within him; he also rose up and went a distance and ran and sprang from the earth and mounted the wall with his wrath-excited strength.

42 And when Dan came on the wall near to Judah, all the men on the wall fled who had stood against Judah; they went up to the second wall and they threw arrows and stones on Dan and Judah from the second wall and endeavored to drive them from the wall.

43 And the arrows and stones struck Dan and Judah and they had nearly been killed on the wall; wherever Dan and Judah fled from the wall they were attacked with arrows and stones from the second wall.

44 Jacob and his sons were still at the entrance of the city below the first wall, and they were not able to draw their bow against the inhabitants of the city as they could not be seen by them, being on the second wall.

45  Dan and Judah, when they could no longer bear the stones and arrows that fell on them from the second wall, both sprang onto the second wall near the people of the city; when the people of the city who were on the second wall saw that Dan and Judah had come to them on the second wall, they all cried out and descended below between the walls.

46 Jacob and his sons heard the noise of the shouting from the people of the city and they were still at the entrance of the city; they were anxious about Dan and Judah who were not seen by them, they being on the second wall.

47  Naphtali went up with his wrath-excited might and sprang on the first wall to see what caused the noise of shouting which they had heard in the city; Issachar and Zebulun came near to break the doors of the city, and they opened the gates of the city and came into the city.

48 Naphtali leaped from the first wall to the second and came to assist his brothers; the inhabitants of Gaash who were on the wall, seeing that Naphtali was the third who had come up to assist his brothers, all fled and descended into the city, and Jacob and all his sons and all their young men came into the city to them.

49 Judah and Dan and Naphtali descended from the wall into the city and pursued the inhabitants of the city, and Simeon and Levi were from outside the city and didn’t know that the gate was opened; they went up from there to the wall and came down to their brothers into the city.

50 The inhabitants of the city had all descended into the city and the sons of Jacob came to them from different directions; the battle waged against them from the front and the rear, and the sons of Jacob struck them terribly and killed about twenty thousand of them men and women; not one of them could stand up against the sons of Jacob.

51 And the blood flowed plentifully in the city, and it was like a brook of water; the blood flowed like a brook to the outer part of the city, and reached the desert of Bethchorin.

52 And the people of Bethchorin saw at a distance the blood flowing from the city of Gaash and about seventy men from among them ran to see the blood, and they came to the place where the blood was.

53 They followed the track of the blood and came to the wall of the city of Gaash, and they saw the blood issue from the city.  They heard the voice of crying from the inhabitants of Gaash, for it ascended to heaven, and the blood was continuing to flow abundantly like a brook of water.

54 And all the sons of Jacob were still smiting the inhabitants of Gaash, and were engaged in slaying them till evening, about twenty thousand men and women.  And the people of Chorin said, Certainly this is the work of the Hebrews, for they are still carrying on war in all the cities of the Amorites.

55 And those people hurried and ran to Bethchorin, and each took his weapons of war; they cried out to all the inhabitants of Bethchorin, who also put on their weapons of war to go and fight with the sons of Jacob.

56 When the sons of Jacob had done smiting the inhabitants of Gaash, they walked about the city to strip all the slain.  Coming into the innermost part of the city and farther on they met three very powerful men, and there was no sword in their hand.

57 The sons of Jacob came up to the place where they were and the powerful men ran away; one of them had taken Zebulun, who he saw was a young lad and of short stature, and with his might dashed him to the ground.

58 And Jacob ran to him with his sword and Jacob struck him below his loins with the sword and cut him in two, and the body fell on Zebulun.

59 The second one approached and seized Jacob to fell him to the ground; Jacob turned to him and shouted to him, while Simeon and Levi ran and struck him on the hips with the sword and felled him to the ground.

60 And the powerful man rose up from the ground with wrath-excited might; Judah came to him before he had gained his footing and struck him on the head with the sword, and his head was split and he died.

61 The third powerful man, seeing that his companions were killed, ran from before the sons of Jacob and the sons of Jacob pursued him into the city; while the powerful man was fleeing he found one of the swords of the inhabitants of the city, he picked it up and turned to the sons of Jacob and fought them with that sword.

62 The powerful man ran to Judah to strike him on the head with the sword, and there was no shield in the hand of Judah; while he was aiming to strike him, Naphtali hastily took his shield and put it to Judah's head and the sword of the powerful man hit the shield of Naphtali, and Judah escaped the sword.

63 Simeon and Levi ran onto the powerful man with their swords and struck at him forcibly with their swords, and the two swords entered the body of the powerful man and divided it in two, length-wise.

64 And the sons of Jacob struck the three mighty men at that time, together with all the inhabitants of Gaash, and the day was about to decline.

65 And the sons of Jacob walked about Gaash and took all the spoil of the city, even the little ones and women they did not allow to live, and the sons of Jacob did to Gaash as they had done to Sarton and Shiloh.

CHAPTER 40

1 And the sons of Jacob led away all the spoil of Gaash, and went out of the city by night.

2 They were going out marching toward the castle of Bethchorin, and the inhabitants of Bethchorin were going to the castle to meet them;  on that night the sons of Jacob fought with the inhabitants of Bethchorin, in the castle of Bethchorin.

3 And all the inhabitants of Bethchorin were mighty men; one of them would not flee from before a thousand men, and they fought on that night on the castle; their shouts were heard on that night from afar and the earth quaked at their shouting.

4 And all the sons of Jacob were afraid of those men as they were not accustomed to fight in the dark, and they were greatly perplexed.  The sons of Jacob cried to the Lord, saying, Give help to us O Lord, deliver us that we may not die by the hands of these uncircumcised men.

5 And the Lord listened to the voice of the sons of Jacob, and the Lord caused great terror and confusion to seize the people of Bethchorin; they fought among themselves with one another in the darkness of night, and struck each other in great numbers.

6 The sons of Jacob, knowing that the Lord had brought a spirit of perverseness among those men, and that they fought each man with his neighbor, went forth from among the bands of the people of Bethchorin and went as far as the descent of the castle of Bethchorin, and farther.  They stayed there securely with their young men on that night.

7 And the people of Bethchorin fought the whole night, one man with his brother, and the other with his neighbor; they cried out in every direction on the castle and their cry was heard at a distance, and the whole earth shook at their voice for they were powerful above all the people of the earth.

8 And all the inhabitants of the cities of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Hivites and all the kings of Canaan, and also those who were on the other side of the Jordan heard the noise of the shouting that night.

9 They said, Certainly these are the battles of the Hebrews who are fighting against the seven cities, who came near to them; who can stand against those Hebrews?

10 All the inhabitants of the cities of the Canaanites and all those who were on the other side of the Jordan were greatly afraid of the sons of Jacob, for they said, Behold the same will be done to us as was done to those cities, for who can stand against their mighty strength?

11 And the cries of the Chorinites were very great on that night and continued to increase; they struck each other till morning, and numbers of them were killed.

12 And the morning appeared; all the sons of Jacob rose up at daybreak and went up to the castle, and they struck those who remained of the Chorinites in a terrible manner and they were all killed in the castle.

13 And the sixth day appeared, and all the inhabitants of Canaan saw at a distance all the people of Bethchorin lying dead in the castle of Bethchorin, and scattered about as the carcasses of lambs and goats.

14 And the sons of Jacob led all the spoil which they had captured from Gaash and went to Bethchorin; they found the city full of people like the sand of the sea, and they fought with them, and the sons of Jacob struck them there till evening time.

15 And the sons of Jacob did to Bethchorin as they had done to Gaash and Tapnach, and as they had done to Chazar, to Sarton and to Shiloh.

16 The sons of Jacob took with them the spoil of Bethchorin and all the spoil of the cities, and on that day they went home to Shechem.

17 And the sons of Jacob came home to the city of Shechem and they remained outside the city, and  then rested there from the war, and stayed there all night.

18 And all their servants together with all the spoil that they had taken from the cities, were left outside the city, and they did not enter the city, for they said, Perhaps there may yet be more fighting against us, and they may come to besiege us in Shechem.

19  Jacob and his sons and their servants remained that night and the next day in the portion of the field which Jacob had purchased from Hamor for five shekels, and all that they had captured was with them.

20 All the booty which the sons of Jacob had captured was in the portion of the field, immense as the sand on the seashore.

21 The inhabitants of the land observed them from afar, and they all were afraid of the sons of Jacob who had done this thing, for no king from the days of old had ever done the like.

22 The seven kings of the Canaanites resolved to make peace with the sons of Jacob, for they were greatly afraid for their lives on account of the sons of Jacob.