⁴ For I and my people have been sold to be destroyed, killed and annihilated.^(A) If we had merely been sold as male and female slaves, I would have kept quiet, because no such distress would justify disturbing the king.^[a]”

⁹ If it pleases the king, let a decree be issued to destroy them, and I will give ten thousand talents^[a] of silver to the king’s administrators for the royal treasury.”^(A)

⁶⁸ The Lord will send you back in ships to Egypt on a journey I said you should never make again.^(A) There you will offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.

¹³ Dispatches were sent by couriers to all the king’s provinces with the order to destroy, kill and annihilate all the Jews^(A)—young and old, women and children—on a single day, the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, the month of Adar,^(B) and to plunder^(C) their goods.

¹¹ The king’s edict granted the Jews in every city the right to assemble and protect themselves; to destroy, kill and annihilate the armed men of any nationality or province who might attack them and their women and children,^[a] and to plunder^(A) the property of their enemies.

Judgment on Israel

⁶ This is what the Lord says:

⁶ You sold the people of Judah and Jerusalem to the Greeks,^(A) that you might send them far from their homeland.

⁶ Esther said, “An adversary and enemy! This vile Haman!”

Then Haman was terrified before the king and queen.