and said, “If it pleases the king, and if I have found favor in his sight and the thing seems right to the king and I am pleasing in his eyes, let it be written to revoke the (A)letters devised by Haman, the son of Hammedatha the Agagite, which he wrote to annihilate the Jews who are in all the king’s provinces.

Read full chapter

Then King Ahasuerus said to Queen Esther and Mordecai the Jew, “Indeed, (A)I have given Esther the house of Haman, and they have hanged him on the gallows because he tried to lay his hand on the Jews. You yourselves write a decree concerning the Jews, [a]as you please, in the king’s name, and seal it with the king’s signet ring; for whatever is written in the king’s name and sealed with the king’s signet ring (B)no one can revoke.”

(C)So the king’s scribes were called at that time, in the third month, which is the month of Sivan, on the twenty-third day; and it was written, according to all that Mordecai commanded, to the Jews, the satraps, the governors, and the princes of the provinces (D)from India to Ethiopia, one hundred and twenty-seven provinces in all, to every province (E)in its own script, to every people in their own language, and to the Jews in their own script and language. 10 (F)And he wrote in the name of King Ahasuerus, sealed it with the king’s signet ring, and sent letters by couriers on horseback, riding on royal horses [b]bred from swift steeds.

11 By these letters the king permitted the Jews who were in every city to (G)gather together and protect their lives—to (H)destroy, kill, and annihilate all the forces of any people or province that would assault them, both little children and women, and to plunder their possessions,

Read full chapter

Footnotes

  1. Esther 8:8 Lit. as is good in your eyes
  2. Esther 8:10 Lit. sons of the swift horses

Bible Gateway Recommends