Esther 3:8-15

English Standard Version

⁸Then Haman said to King Ahasuerus, “There is a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom. ^(A)Their laws are different from those of every other people, and they do not keep the king's laws, so that it is not to the king's profit to tolerate them. ⁹If it please the king, let it be decreed that they be destroyed, and I will pay 10,000 talents^[a] of silver into the hands of those who have charge of the king's business, that they may put it into the king's treasuries.” ¹⁰^(B)So the king took his signet ring from his hand and gave it to Haman ^(C)the Agagite, the son of Hammedatha, ^(D)the enemy of the Jews. ¹¹And the king said to Haman, “The money is given to you, the people also, to do with them as it seems good to you.”

¹²^(E)Then the king's scribes were summoned on the thirteenth day of the first month, and an edict, according to all that Haman commanded, was written to the king's ^(F)satraps and to the governors over all the provinces and to the officials of all the peoples, ^(G)to every province in its own script and every people in its own language. It was written ^(H)in the name of King Ahasuerus ^(I)and sealed with the king's signet ring. ¹³Letters were sent ^(J)by couriers to all the king's provinces with instruction ^(K)to destroy, to kill, and to annihilate all Jews, young and old, women and children, ^(L)in one day, the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar, ^(M)and to plunder their goods. ¹⁴^(N)A copy of the document was to be issued as a decree in every province by proclamation to all the peoples to be ready for that day. ¹⁵^(O)The couriers went out hurriedly by order of the king, and the decree was issued in Susa the citadel. And the king and Haman sat down to drink, ^(P)but the city of Susa was thrown into confusion.