1. Then King Ptolemy of Egypt gathered a great army, numbering like the sand by the seashore, and many ships. He tried to gain possession of Alexander’s kingdom by trickery to add it to his own kingdom.
2. Ptolemy set out for Syria, speaking peaceful words. The people of the towns opened their gates to him. They went to meet him because King Alexander had commanded them to do so, since Ptolemy was his father-in-law.
3. But when Ptolemy entered the towns, he stationed forces as a garrison in each one.
4. When he approached Azotus, they showed him that Dagon’s temple had been burned. Azotus and its suburbs had been destroyed. Corpses were lying about, the charred bodies of those whom Jonathan had burned in the war. They had piled them in heaps along his route.