Yet he [Holofernes] demolished all their
shrines and cut down their sacred groves; for he had been commissioned to
destroy all the gods of the land, so that all nations should worship (λατρευω)
Nebuchadnezzar alone, and that all their dialects and tribes should call upon
(επικαλεω) him as a god. (Judith 3:8 NRSV)
In the above
text from the book of Judith (part of the Roman Catholic canon), Nebuchadnezzar
is the object of both λατρευω (the highest form of cultic worship), and the goal is for nations
“to call upon” him as a god, using the verb επικαλεω, which is often used in the
sense of invoking in prayer. This shows that the LXX did use λατευω for mortals, not YHWH alone,
similar to how Deut
28:48 in the LXX states that λατρευω will be given to the nations opposing
Israel.
