Esther 2:12-18

GOD’S WORD Translation

¹² Each young woman had her turn to go to King Xerxes after she had completed the required 12-month treatment for women. The time of beauty treatment was spent as follows: six months using oil of myrrh and six months using perfumes and other treatments for women.

¹³ After that, the young woman would go to the king. Anything she wanted to take with her from the women’s quarters to the king’s palace was given to her. ¹⁴ She would go in the evening and come back in the morning to the other quarters for women. There she would be in the care of the king’s eunuch Shaashgaz, the guardian of the concubines.^[a] She never went to the king again unless the king desired her and requested her by name.

¹⁵ (Esther was the daughter of Abihail, Mordecai’s uncle. Mordecai had adopted her as his own daughter.)

When Esther’s turn came to go to the king, she asked only for what the king’s eunuch Hegai, the guardian of the women, advised. Everyone who saw Esther liked her. ¹⁶ So Esther was taken to King Xerxes in his royal palace in the month of Tebeth, the tenth month, in the seventh year of his reign.

¹⁷ Now, the king loved Esther more than all the other women and favored her over all the other virgins. So he put the royal crown on her head and made her queen instead of Vashti. ¹⁸ Then the king held a great banquet for Esther. He invited all his officials and his advisers. He also declared that day a holiday in the provinces, and he handed out gifts from his royal generosity.