⁷ And Mordecai had brought up Hadassah, that is, Esther, ^(A)his uncle’s daughter, for she had neither father nor mother. The young woman was lovely and beautiful. When her father and mother died, Mordecai took her as his own daughter.

¹⁵ Now when the turn came for Esther ^(A)the daughter of Abihail the uncle of Mordecai, who had taken her as his daughter, to go in to the king, she requested nothing but what Hegai the king’s eunuch, the custodian of the women, advised. And Esther ^(B)obtained favor in the sight of all who saw her.

⁴ And ^(A)you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but ^(B)bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.

⁶ Now from among those of the sons of Judah were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. ^7 (A)To them the chief of the eunuchs gave names: ^(B)he gave Daniel the name Belteshazzar; to Hananiah, Shadrach; to Mishael, Meshach; and to Azariah, Abed-Nego.

⁷ ‘Behold, Hanamel the son of Shallum your uncle will come to you, saying, “Buy my field which is in Anathoth, for the ^(A)right of redemption is yours to buy it.” ’ ⁸ Then Hanamel my uncle’s son came to me in the court of the prison according to the word of the Lord, and said to me, ‘Please buy my field that is in Anathoth, which is in the country of Benjamin; for the right of inheritance is yours, and the redemption yours; buy it for yourself.’ Then I knew that this was the word of the Lord. ⁹ So I bought the field from Hanamel, the son of my uncle who was in Anathoth, and ^(B)weighed out to him the money—seventeen shekels of silver. ¹⁰ And I signed the ^[a]deed and sealed it, took witnesses, and weighed the money on the scales. ¹¹ So I took the purchase deed, both that which was sealed according to the law and custom, and that which was open; ¹² and I gave the purchase deed to ^(C)Baruch the son of Neriah, son of Mahseiah, in the presence of Hanamel my uncle’s son, and in the presence of the ^(D)witnesses who signed the purchase deed, before all the Jews who sat in the court of the prison.

¹¹ to bring Queen Vashti before the king, wearing her royal crown, in order to show her beauty to the people and the officials, for she was beautiful to behold.

⁵ And now your ^(A)two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, who were born to you in the land of Egypt before I came to you in Egypt, are mine; as Reuben and Simeon, they shall be mine.

The Command to Love

3 Behold ^(A)what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that ^(B)we should be called children of ^[a]God! Therefore the world does not know ^[b]us, ^(C)because it did not know Him.