4 Each gateway was thirty metres high and eighteen metres wide — wide enough for his whole army to march through, with the infantry in formation.
5 In the twelfth year of his reign King Nebuchadnezzar went to war against King Arphaxad in the large plain round the city of Rages.
6 Many nations joined forces with King Arphaxad — all the people who lived in the mountains, those who lived along the rivers Tigris, Euphrates, and Hydaspes, as well as those who lived in the plain ruled by King Arioch of Elam. Many nations joined this Chelodite alliance.
7 Then King Nebuchadnezzar of Assyria sent a message to the Persians and to the people to the west, in the regions of Cilicia, Damascus, Lebanon, Antilebanon, to those along the coast,
8 and in the regions of Carmel, Gilead, northern Galilee, and the Valley of Jezreel.
9-10 The message also went to the people living in Samaria and the nearby towns, to those in the area west of the River Jordan as far as the cities of Jerusalem, Bethany, Chelous, and Kadesh, and to the district of Goshen. The message was also taken to the Egyptian cities of Tahpanhes, Rameses, Tanis, and Memphis, and the district up the River Nile to the Sudan border.
11 But everyone in this whole region ignored King Nebuchadnezzar's appeal and refused to take part in the war. They thought that he had no chance of winning the war, so they were not afraid of him and sent his messengers back disgraced and empty-handed.