⁴ For we have been sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be killed, and to be annihilated. If we had been sold merely as slaves, men and women, I would have held my peace, but no enemy can compensate for this damage to the king.”^[a](A)

⁹ If it pleases the king, let a decree be issued for their destruction, and I will pay ten thousand talents of silver into the hands of those who have charge of the king’s business, so that they may put it into the king’s treasuries.”

⁶⁸ The Lord will bring you back in ships to Egypt, by a route that I promised you would never see again, and there you shall offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but there will be no buyer.”

¹³ Letters were sent by couriers to all the king’s provinces, giving orders to destroy, to kill, and to annihilate all Jews, young and old, children and women, in one day, the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar, and to plunder their goods.^(A)

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

Judgment on Israel

⁶ You have sold the people of Judah and Jerusalem to the Greeks, removing them far from their own border.

⁶ Esther said, “A foe and an enemy, this wicked Haman!” Then Haman was terrified before the king and the queen.^(A)

⁷ and Mordecai told him all that had happened to him and the exact sum of money that Haman had promised to pay into the king’s treasuries for the destruction of the Jews.^{(A) 8} Mordecai also gave him a copy of the written decree issued in Susa for their destruction, that he might show it to Esther, explain it to her, and charge her to go to the king to make supplication to him and to entreat him for her people.^(B)