⁸ Now, Your Majesty, issue the decree and put it in writing so that it cannot be altered—in accordance with the law of the Medes and Persians, which cannot be repealed.”^(A)

¹⁵ Then the men went as a group to King Darius and said to him, “Remember, Your Majesty, that according to the law of the Medes and Persians no decree or edict that the king issues can be changed.”^(A)

¹⁹ “Therefore, if it pleases the king,^(A) let him issue a royal decree and let it be written in the laws of Persia and Media, which cannot be repealed,^(B) that Vashti is never again to enter the presence of King Xerxes. Also let the king give her royal position to someone else who is better than she.

¹² So they went to the king and spoke to him about his royal decree: “Did you not publish a decree that during the next thirty days anyone who prays to any god or human being except to you, Your Majesty, would be thrown into the lions’ den?”

The king answered, “The decree stands—in accordance with the law of the Medes and Persians, which cannot be repealed.”^(A)

¹⁰ Mordecai wrote in the name of King Xerxes, sealed the dispatches with the king’s signet ring, and sent them by mounted couriers, who rode fast horses especially bred for the king.

¹² Then on the thirteenth day of the first month the royal secretaries were summoned. They wrote out in the script of each province and in the language^(A) of each people all Haman’s orders to the king’s satraps, the governors of the various provinces and the nobles of the various peoples. These were written in the name of King Xerxes himself and sealed^(B) with his own ring.

⁸ Now write another decree^(A) in the king’s name in behalf of the Jews as seems best to you, and seal^(B) it with the king’s signet ring^(C)—for no document written in the king’s name and sealed with his ring can be revoked.”^(D)

³ Esther again pleaded with the king, falling at his feet and weeping. She begged him to put an end to the evil plan of Haman the Agagite,^(A) which he had devised against the Jews.