²² And take care not to be slack in this matter. Why should damage grow to the hurt of the king?”

³ Then Queen Esther answered, ^(A)“If I have found favor in your sight, O king, and if it please the king, let my life be granted me for my wish, and my people for my request. ^4 (B)For we have been sold, I and my people, ^(C)to be destroyed, to be killed, and to be annihilated. If we had been sold merely as slaves, men and women, I would have been silent, for our affliction is not to be compared with the loss to the king.”

⁸ Then 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. ⁹ If 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.”

¹³ Now be it known to the king that if this city is rebuilt and the walls finished, they will not pay ^(A)tribute, custom, or toll, and the royal revenue will be impaired.