Esther 2:12-18

The Voice

¹² Before going in to the king, each young woman went through 12 months of beauty treatments, as the harem’s rules prescribed. For the first 6 months the women were treated with the palace’s finest myrrh oil, and that was followed by 6 months in perfume and other women’s cosmetics. ¹³ This is how a young woman would go in to the king: each woman was allowed to take whatever she wanted or needed from the harem into the king’s rooms. ¹⁴ In the evening the woman would go in to King Ahasuerus’ chambers and then, the next morning, she would return to the harem again, but now she would be watched over by Shaashgaz, the king’s eunuch in charge of his concubines. No woman returned to the king’s rooms unless he was pleased by her and called for her by name.

¹⁵ Esther was the daughter of Abihail who in turn was the uncle of Mordecai. When it was time for Esther, whom Mordecai had adopted, to go in to the king, she didn’t ask for anything special. She took only what Hegai suggested. Since he was the king’s eunuch in charge of the women, he would know what was best. Now Esther had some special qualities, and all who met her favored her. ¹⁶ In the 10th month (the month of Tebeth) during the 7th year of his reign, four years after King Ahasuerus dethroned Queen Vashti, Esther was taken to King Ahasuerus in the king’s rooms. ¹⁷ The king found her to be more desirable than all of the other women. Unlike the other young women brought before him, she alone won his heart and his favor. So he made her his queen instead of Vashti and placed the royal crown on her head. ¹⁸ King Ahasuerus invited all of the nobles and officials to a state banquet in honor of Esther, his new queen. He declared that day as a holiday throughout his entire kingdom and distributed extravagant gifts.