^4 (A)For we have been sold, I and my people, ^(B)to be destroyed, to be killed, and to be annihilated. If we had been sold merely as slaves, men and women, I would have been silent, for our affliction is not to be compared with the loss to the king.”

¹¹ saying that the king allowed the Jews who were in every city ^(A)to gather and defend their lives, ^(B)to destroy, to kill, and to annihilate any armed force of any people or province that might attack them, children and women included, ^(C)and to plunder their goods,