to support his claims, giving to him pledges for his alliance,
    and the other came as a helper.  Ispabara, on his side,
    implored me to maintain his cause, and to encourage him,
    at the same time bowing down, and humbling himself, and
    asking my alliance.  I sent seven of my Lieutenants with
    their armies to support his claims, they put Nibie and the
    army of the four rivers,[27] which had helped him, to flight,
    at the town of Mareobisti.  I reinstated Ispabara on the
    throne; I re-established peace in his country, and confided
    it to his care.

38 Merodach-Baladan, son of Iakin,[28] King of Chaldaea, the
    fallacious, the persistent in enmity, did not respect the
    memory of the gods, he trusted in the sea, and in the retreat
    of the marshes; he eluded the precepts of the great
    gods, and refused to send his tributes.  He had supported
    as an ally Khumbanigas, King of Elam.  He had excited
    all the nomadic tribes of the desert against me.  He prepared
    himself for battle, and advanced.  During twelve
    years,[29] against the will of the gods of Babylon, the town
    of Bel which judges the gods, he had excited the country
    of the Sumers and Accads, and had sent ambassadors to
    them.  In honor of the god Assur, the father of the gods,
    and of the great and august Lord Merodach, I roused my
    courage, I prepared my ranks for battle.  I decreed an
    expedition against the Chaldeans, an impious and riotous
    people.  Merodach-Baladan heard of the approach of my
    expedition, dreading the terror of his own warriors, he fled
    before it, and flew in the night time like an owl, falling back
    from Babylon, to the town of Ikbibel.  He assembled together
    the towns possessing oracles, and the gods living
    in these towns he brought to save them to Dur-Iakin, fortifying
    its walls.  He summoned the tribes of Gambul,
    Pukud, Tamun, Ruhua, and Khindar, put them in this place,
    and prepared for battle.  He calculated the extent of a
    plethrum[30] in front of the great wall.  He constructed a
    ditch 200 spans[31] wide, and deep one fathom and a half.[32]
    The conduits of water, coming from the Euphrates, flowed
    out into this ditch; he had cut off the course of the river,
    and divided it into canals, he had surrounded the town,
    the place of his revolt, with a dam, he had filled it with
    water, and cut off the conduits.  Merodach-Baladan, with
    his allies and his soldiers had the insignia of his royalty
    kept as in an island on the banks of the river; he arranged
    his plan of battle.  I stretched my combatants all along
    the river dividing them into bands; they conquered the
    enemies.  By the blood of the rebels the waters of these
    canals reddened like dyed