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Royal Favour Shown to the Jews

8On that very day King Artaxerxes granted to Esther all the property of the persecutor^* Haman. Mordecai was summoned by the king, for Esther had told the king^* that he was related to her. ²The king took the ring that had been taken from Haman, and gave it to Mordecai; and Esther set Mordecai over everything that had been Haman’s.

3 Then she spoke once again to the king and, falling at his feet, she asked him to avert all the evil that Haman had planned against the Jews. ⁴The king extended his golden sceptre to Esther, and she rose and stood before the king. ⁵Esther said, ‘If it pleases you, and if I have found favour, let an order be sent rescinding the letters that Haman wrote and sent to destroy the Jews in your kingdom. ⁶How can I look on the ruin of my people? How can I be safe if my ancestral nation^* is destroyed?’ ⁷The king said to Esther, ‘Now that I^* have granted all of Haman’s property to you and have hanged him on a tree because he acted against the Jews, what else do you request? ⁸Write in my name what you think best and seal it with my ring; for whatever is written at the king’s command and sealed with my ring cannot be contravened.’

9 The secretaries were summoned on the twenty-third day of the first month, that is, Nisan, in the same year; and all that he commanded with respect to the Jews was given in writing to the administrators and governors of the provinces from India to Ethiopia, one hundred and twenty-seven provinces, to each province in its own language. ¹⁰The edict was written^* with the king’s authority and sealed with his ring, and sent out by couriers. ¹¹He ordered the Jews in every city to observe their own laws, to defend themselves, and to act as they wished against their opponents and enemies ¹²on a certain day, the thirteenth of the twelfth month, which is Adar, throughout all the kingdom of Artaxerxes.

8¹³‘Let copies of the decree be posted conspicuously in all the kingdom, and let all the Jews be ready on that day to fight against their enemies.’

14 So the messengers on horseback set out with all speed to perform what the king had commanded; and the decree was published also in Susa. ¹⁵Mordecai went out dressed in the royal robe and wearing a gold crown and a turban of purple linen. The people in Susa rejoiced on seeing him. ¹⁶And the Jews had light and gladness ¹⁷in every city and province wherever the decree was published; wherever the proclamation was made, the Jews had joy and gladness, a banquet and a holiday. And many of the Gentiles were circumcised and became Jews out of fear of the Jews.