and they captured for themselves in advance all the tops of the high mountains, and fortified the villages which were in them, and stored up food as provisions for war, for their fields had been recently reaped.
Also, Joacim the high priest, who was in those days in Jerusalem,
wrote to those who lived in Bethulia and Betomestham, which is opposite Esdraelon toward the open country near Dothaim,
charging them to hold the passages of the hill country;
for through them there was an entrance into Judea, and it was easy to stop those who would come up, because the passage was narrow, for two men at the most.