Esther 8

¹ That same day King Ahasuerus gave Queen Esther the house of Haman, the persecutor of the Jews. Mordecai was presented to the king, Esther having revealed their mutual relationship.

² The king, who had recovered his signet ring from Haman, took it off and gave it to Mordecai, while Esther gave Mordecai charge of Haman’s house.

³ Esther again went to speak to the king. She fell at his feet, weeping and imploring his favour, to frustrate the wicked scheme devised by Haman the Agagite and his plot against the Jews.

⁴ The king held out the golden sceptre to her, whereupon Esther rose and stood face to face with him.

⁵ ‘If such is the king’s good pleasure,’ she said ‘and if I have found favour before him, if my petition seems proper to him and if I myself am pleasing to his eyes, may he be pleased to issue a written revocation of the letters which Haman son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, contrived to have written to procure the destruction of the Jews in every province of the realm.

⁶ For how can I look on, while my people suffer what is in store for them? How can I bear to witness the extermination of my race?’

⁷ King Ahasuerus said to Queen Esther and to Mordecai the Jew, ‘I for my part have given Esther Haman’s house, and have had him hanged on the gallows for planning to destroy the Jews.

⁸ You are free now to write to them as you judge best, in the king’s name, and seal what you write with the king’s signet; for an order written in the king’s name and sealed with his signet is irrevocable.’

⁹ The royal scribes summoned at once-it was the third month, the month of Sivan, on the twenty-third day-and at Mordecai’s dictation an order was written to the Jews, the satraps, governors and administrators of the provinces stretching from India to Ethiopia, a hundred and twenty-seven provinces, to each province in its own script, and to each people in its own language, and to the Jews in their own script and language.

¹⁰ These letters, written in the name of King Ahasuerus and sealed with the king’s signet, were carried by couriers mounted on horses from the king’s own stud-farms.

¹¹ In them the king granted the Jews, in whatever city they lived, the right to assemble in self-defence, with permission to destroy, slaughter and annihilate any armed force of any people or province that might attack them, together with their women and children, and to plunder their possessions,

¹² with effect from the same day throughout the provinces of King Ahasuerus – the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is Adar.

¹³ The text of this edict, to be promulgated as law in each province, was published to the various peoples, so that the Jews could be ready on the day stated to avenge themselves on their enemies.

¹⁴ The couriers, mounted on the king’s horses, set out in great haste and urgency at the king’s command. The edict was also published in the citadel of Susa.

¹⁵ Mordecai left the royal presence in a princely gown of violet and white, with a great golden crown and a cloak of fine linen and purple. The city of Susa shouted for joy.

¹⁶ For the Jews there was light and gladness, joy and honour.

¹⁷ In every province and in every city, wherever the king’s command and decree arrived, there was joy and gladness among the Jews, with feasting and holiday-making. Of the country’s population many became Jews, since now the Jews were feared.