¹⁶ She was taken to King Xerxes in the royal residence in the tenth month, the month of Tebeth, in the seventh year of his reign.

⁹ At once the royal secretaries were summoned—on the twenty-third day of the third month, the month of Sivan. They wrote out all Mordecai’s orders to the Jews, and to the satraps, governors and nobles of the 127 provinces stretching from India to Cush.^[a](A) These orders were written in the script of each province and the language of each people and also to the Jews in their own script and language.^(B)

³ Let the king appoint commissioners in every province of his realm to bring all these beautiful young women into the harem at the citadel of Susa. Let them be placed under the care of Hegai, the king’s eunuch, who is in charge of the women; and let beauty treatments be given to them.

Esther Made Queen

2 Later when King Xerxes’ fury had subsided,^(A) he remembered Vashti and what she had done and what he had decreed about her.

⁸ Ezra arrived in Jerusalem in the fifth month of the seventh year of the king.