²⁰ Then Balaam looked over toward the people of Amalek and delivered this message:

¹⁴ After the victory, the Lord instructed Moses, “Write this down on a scroll as a permanent reminder, and read it aloud to Joshua: I will erase the memory of Amalek from under heaven.”

¹⁴ So the king agreed, and the decree was announced in Susa. And they impaled the bodies of Haman’s ten sons.

⁹ Then Harbona, one of the king’s eunuchs, said, “Haman has set up a sharpened pole that stands seventy-five feet^[a] tall in his own courtyard. He intended to use it to impale Mordecai, the man who saved the king from assassination.”

“Then impale Haman on it!” the king ordered. ¹⁰ So they impaled Haman on the pole he had set up for Mordecai, and the king’s anger subsided.

Haman’s Plot against the Jews

3 Some time later King Xerxes promoted Haman son of Hammedatha the Agagite over all the other nobles, making him the most powerful official in the empire.

⁴³ They destroyed the few Amalekites who had survived, and they have lived there ever since.

¹⁷ David and his men rushed in among them and slaughtered them throughout that night and the entire next day until evening. None of the Amalekites escaped except 400 young men who fled on camels.

David Destroys the Amalekites

30 Three days later, when David and his men arrived home at their town of Ziklag, they found that the Amalekites had made a raid into the Negev and Ziklag; they had crushed Ziklag and burned it to the ground.

⁸ David and his men spent their time raiding the Geshurites, the Girzites, and the Amalekites—people who had lived near Shur, toward the land of Egypt, since ancient times. ⁹ David did not leave one person alive in the villages he attacked. He took the sheep, goats, cattle, donkeys, camels, and clothing before returning home to see King Achish.

³ Now go and completely destroy^[a] the entire Amalekite nation—men, women, children, babies, cattle, sheep, goats, camels, and donkeys.”

⁴ So Saul mobilized his army at Telaim. There were 200,000 soldiers from Israel and 10,000 men from Judah. ⁵ Then Saul and his army went to a town of the Amalekites and lay in wait in the valley. ⁶ Saul sent this warning to the Kenites: “Move away from where the Amalekites live, or you will die with them. For you showed kindness to all the people of Israel when they came up from Egypt.” So the Kenites packed up and left.

⁷ Then Saul slaughtered the Amalekites from Havilah all the way to Shur, east of Egypt. ⁸ He captured Agag, the Amalekite king, but completely destroyed everyone else.