Bible Browser

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.