Esther 3
A Man Who Would Not Bow, and a Lot Cast for a People
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Haman Exalted; Mordecai Will Not Bow
3:1After these things King Artaxerxes honored Haman son of Hammedatha, a Bougaean, and exalted him; he held the first rank among all the king’s friends.
3:2Everyone in the court bowed before him, for the king had commanded them to do so. But Mordecai did not bow before him.
3:3Those in the king’s court said to Mordecai, “Mordecai, why do you disobey what the king says?”
3:4They spoke to him every day, but he did not listen to them. They pointed out to Haman that Mordecai was opposing the king’s words. Mordecai had told them that he was a Jew.
Haman Resolves to Destroy the Jews
3:5When Haman learned that Mordecai did not bow before him, he became exceedingly angry
3:6and resolved to wipe out all the Jews under Artaxerxes’s rule.
3:7He made a decree in the twelfth year of Artaxerxes’s reign and cast lots, day by day and month by month, to destroy Mordecai’s race in a single day. The lot fell on the fourteenth of the month, which is Adar.
The King Gives Haman His Ring
3:8He spoke to King Artaxerxes, saying, “There is a nation scattered among the nations throughout your kingdom. Their laws are unlike those of all the nations; they disobey the king’s laws, and it is not advantageous for the king to let them be.
3:9If it pleases the king, let him decree their destruction, and I will pay ten thousand talents of silver into the king’s treasury.”
3:10The king removed his ring and put it into Haman’s hand to seal the written measures against the Jews.
3:11The king said to Haman, “Keep the silver; deal with the nation as you wish.”
The Letters Sent by Couriers
3:12The king’s scribes were summoned on the thirteenth of the first month. As Haman commanded, they wrote to the generals and rulers in every territory from India to Ethiopia, the hundred and twenty-seven territories, and to the rulers of the nations in their own language, by authority of King Artaxerxes.
3:13Letters were sent by couriers into Artaxerxes’s kingdom to wipe out the race of the Jews in a single day of the twelfth month, which is Adar, and to plunder their possessions.
The Copy of the King’s Letter
3:13aThis is the copy of the letter: “The great King Artaxerxes writes the following to the rulers of the hundred and twenty-seven territories from India to Ethiopia and to the district governors subject to them:
3:13bHaving ruled many nations and gained control of the whole inhabited world, I have wished—not exalting myself through the boldness of authority, but always conducting myself with greater fairness and gentleness—to establish the lives of my subjects in perpetual calm, to provide a kingdom civilized and traversable to its furthest limits, and to renew the peace desired by all people.
3:13cWhen I asked my counselors how this might be brought to completion, Haman, who excels among us in sound judgment, has demonstrated unchanging goodwill and firm loyalty, and has received the second honor in the kingdom,
3:13dpointed out to us that among all the tribes throughout the inhabited world a certain hostile people is intermingled, opposed in its laws to every nation, continually disregarding the kings’ decrees so as not to accept the shared administration that we direct blamelessly.
3:13eWe have therefore understood that this nation alone stands in continual opposition to every person, differing through its strange observance of laws, showing ill will toward our affairs, and accomplishing the worst evils so that the kingdom may not enjoy stability.
3:13fWe have therefore commanded that all those indicated to you in the writings of Haman, who is appointed over our affairs and is our second father, be destroyed root and branch, with wives and children, by the swords of their enemies, without any pity or sparing, on the fourteenth of the twelfth month, Adar, of the present year,
3:13gso that those hostile both formerly and now may go down violently to Hades in a single day and thereafter leave our affairs stable and undisturbed for all time.”
The Decree Posted; the City Bewildered
3:14The copies of the letters were posted in every territory, and all the nations were ordered to be ready for that day.
3:15The matter was also hurried forward in Susa. The king and Haman were drinking heavily, while the city was troubled.
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Saints Translation · Liturgical reading edition · V1 · working draft awaiting specialist review.