The letters were sent by courier to all the provinces of the king to destroy, kill, and annihilate all the Jews, young and old, including children and women, and to plunder their goods in one day, on the thirteenth day of Adar, the twelfth month.

because I and my people have been sold to be destroyed, to be killed, and to be annihilated. If we were merely being sold to be male and female slaves, I would have remained silent, because that would not have been bad enough to be a reason to bother the king.”

The Content and Effect of the Letters

The king gave the Jews in every city the right to gather together to defend their own lives and to destroy, kill, and annihilate any military force of any people or province that might attack them, along with their children and their wives, and to plunder their goods.

But the house of Israel rebelled against me in the wilderness. They did not walk in my statutes, and they rejected my ordinances (ordinances by which a man will live if he observes them), and they profaned my Sabbaths completely. So I threatened to pour out my wrath on them in the wilderness in order to annihilate them.