ding multitude
of your army which gives you such good hopes? Yet certainly there is
no strength at all in an army of many ten thousands, when the war is
unjust; for we ought to place our surest hopes of success against our
enemies in righteousness alone, and in piety towards God; which hope we
justly have, since we have kept the laws from the beginning, and have
worshipped our own God, who was not made by hands out of corruptible
matter; nor was he formed by a wicked king, in order to deceive the
multitude; but who is his own workmanship, [28] and the beginning and
end of all things. I therefore give you counsel even now to repent, and
to take better advice, and to leave off the prosecution of the war; to
call to mind the laws of your country, and to reflect what it hath been
that hath advanced you to so happy a state as you are now in."

3. This was the speech which Abijah made to the multitude. But while
he was still speaking Jeroboam sent some of his soldiers privately to
encompass Abijab round about, on certain parts of the camp that were not
taken notice of; and when he was thus within the compass of the enemy,
his army was affrighted, and their courage failed them; but Abijah
encouraged them, and exhorted them to place their hopes on God, for that
he was not encompassed by the enemy. So they all at once implored the
Divine assistance, while the priests sounded with the trumpet, and they
made a shout, and fell upon their enemies, and God brake the courage and
cast down the force of their enemies, and made Ahijah's army superior
to them; for God vouchsafed to grant them a wonderful and very famous
victory; and such a slaughter was now made of Jeroboam's army [29] as is
never recorded to have happened in any other war, whether it were of the
Greeks or of the Barbarians, for they overthrew [and slew] five hundred
thousand of their enemies, and they took their strongest cities by
force, and spoiled them; and besides those, they did the same to
Bethel and her towns, and Jeshanah and her towns. And after this defeat
Jeroboam never recovered himself during the life of Abijah, who yet
did not long survive, for he reigned but three years, and was buried
in Jerusalem in the sepulchers of his forefathers. He left behind him
twenty-two sons, and sixteen daughters; and he had also those children
by fourteen wives; and Asa his son succeeded in the kingdom; and the
young man's mother was Michaiah. Under his reign the country of th