⁸ Then Haman said to King Xerxes, “There is a certain people dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom who keep themselves separate. Their customs^(A) are different from those of all other people, and they do not obey^(B) the king’s laws; it is not in the king’s best interest to tolerate them.^{(C) 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.”^(D)

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.