What does Judith Chapter 1 record?

Arphaxad, king of the Medes, brought many nations under his rule and built the strongly fortified city of Ecbatana. He constructed its walls from squared and hewn stones, making them seventy cubits wide and thirty cubits high. He raised the towers to a height of one hundred cubits, with square bases measuring twenty feet on each side, and built gates that matched the full height of the towers. Confident in his military strength, Arphaxad boasted openly of his powerful army and his splendid chariots. In a separate annotation, the edition says Arphaxad was probably the same as Dejoces, whom Herodotus credits with building Ecbatana.

In the twelfth year of his reign, King Nabuchodonosor of the Assyrians, who ruled from the great city of Ninive, marched against Arphaxad and overcame him in battle. Their armies met in the vast plain called Ragua, situated around the Euphrates, Tigris, and Jadason rivers, in the territory of King Erioch of the Elicians. In another annotation, Challoner clarifies that this Nabuchodonosor was not the later king of Babylon who destroyed Jerusalem, but an Assyrian monarch known to secular historians as Saosduchin, who succeeded Asarhaddan and reigned as a contemporary of King Manasses of Juda.

Following this victory, Nabuchodonosor's kingdom was exalted and his heart was elevated. He dispatched messengers to all the peoples living in Cilicia, Damascus, and Libanus. His envoys were also sent to the nations inhabiting Carmelus and Cedar, to the inhabitants of Galilee in the great plain of Asdrelon, to all who dwelt in Samaria and beyond the Jordan River as far as Jerusalem, and across the entire land of Jesse down to the borders of Ethiopia.

The inhabitants of all these summoned lands acted with one mind: they refused the messengers, sent the messengers away empty-handed, and dismissed them without honor. When news of this universal rebuff reached King Nabuchodonosor, he was filled with intense fury against all those regions. He swore a solemn oath by his royal throne and kingdom, vowing that he would take vengeance upon all those defiant countries.