The Daily Audio Bible

4 When Mordekhai learned everything that had been done, he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and ashes and went out through the city, lamenting and crying bitterly. ² He stopped before entering the King’s Gate, since no one was allowed to go inside the King’s Gate wearing sackcloth. ³ In every province reached by the king’s order and decree, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting, weeping and wailing, as many lay down on sackcloth and ashes.

⁴ When the girls and officials attending Ester came and informed her of this, the queen became deeply distressed. She sent clothes for Mordekhai to wear instead of his sackcloth, but he wouldn’t accept them. ⁵ So Ester summoned Hatakh, one of the king’s officials attending her, and instructed him to go to Mordekhai and find out what this was all about and why. ⁶ Hatakh went out to Mordekhai in the open space in front of the King’s Gate, ⁷ and Mordekhai told him everything that had happened to him and exactly how much silver Haman had promised to put in the royal treasury for the destruction of the Jews. ⁸ He also gave him a copy of the decree for their destruction issued in Shushan; so that he could show it to Ester, explain it to her, and then instruct her to approach the king, intercede with him and implore his favor on behalf of her people. ⁹ Hatakh returned and told Ester what Mordekhai had said.

¹⁰ Then Ester spoke to Hatakh and gave him this message for Mordekhai: ¹¹ “All the king’s officials, as well as the people in the royal provinces, know that if anyone, man or woman, approaches the king in the inner courtyard without being summoned, there is just one law — he must be put to death — unless the king holds out the gold scepter for him to remain alive; and I haven’t been summoned to the king for the past thirty days.”

¹² Upon being told what Ester had said, Mordekhai ¹³ asked them to give Ester this answer: “Don’t suppose that merely because you happen to be in the royal palace you will escape any more than the other Jews. ¹⁴ For if you fail to speak up now, relief and deliverance will come to the Jews from a different direction; but you and your father’s family will perish. Who knows whether you didn’t come into your royal position precisely for such a time as this.”

¹⁵ Ester had them return this answer to Mordekhai: ¹⁶ “Go, assemble all the Jews to be found in Shushan, and have them fast for me, neither eating nor drinking for three days, night and day; also I and the girls attending me will fast the same way. Then I will go in to the king, which is against the law; and if I perish, I perish.” ¹⁷ Then Mordekhai went his way and did everything Ester had ordered him to do.

5 On the third day, Ester put on her royal robes and stood in the inner courtyard of the king’s palace, opposite the king’s hall. The king was sitting on his royal throne in the king’s hall, across from the entrance to the hall. ² When the king saw Ester the queen standing in the courtyard, she won his favor; so the king extended the gold scepter in his hand toward Ester. Ester approached and touched the tip of the scepter. ³ “What is it you want, Queen Ester?” the king asked her. “Whatever your request, up to half the kingdom, it will be given to you.” ⁴ “If it is all right with the king,” answered Ester, “let the king and Haman come today to the banquet I have prepared for him.” ⁵ The king said, “Bring Haman quickly, so that what Ester has asked for can be done.” ⁽⁶⁾ So the king and Haman came to the banquet Ester had prepared.

^6 (7) At the banquet of wine the king again said to Ester, “Whatever your request, you will be granted it; whatever you want, up to half the kingdom, it will be done.” ^7 (8) Then Ester answered, “My request, what I want, is this: ⁸ if I have won the king’s favor, if it pleases the king to grant my request and do what I want, let the king and Haman come to the banquet which I will prepare for them; and tomorrow I will do as the king has said.”

⁹ That day Haman went out happy and in good spirits. But when Haman saw Mordekhai at the King’s Gate, that he neither rose nor moved for him, Haman was infuriated with Mordekhai. ¹⁰ Nevertheless, Haman restrained himself and went home, where he summoned and brought his friends and Zeresh his wife. ¹¹ Haman boasted to them about his vast wealth, his many sons, and everything connected with how the king had promoted him and given him precedence over the other officials and servants of the king. ¹² “Indeed,” Haman added, “Ester the queen let nobody into the banquet with the king that she had prepared except myself; and tomorrow, too, I am invited by her, together with the king. ¹³ Yet none of this does me any good at all, as long as I keep seeing Mordekhai the Jew remaining seated at the King’s Gate.” ¹⁴ At this Zeresh his wife and all his friends said to him, “Have a gallows seventy-five feet high constructed, and in the morning speak to the king about having Mordekhai hanged on it. Then go in, and enjoy yourself with the king at the banquet.” Haman liked the idea, so he had a gallows made.

6 That night, the king couldn’t sleep; so he ordered the records of the daily journal brought, and they were read to the king. ² It was found written that Mordekhai had told about Bigtana and Teresh, two of the king’s officers from the group in charge of the private entryways, who had conspired to assassinate King Achashverosh. ³ The king asked, “What honor or distinction was conferred on Mordekhai for this?” The king’s servants answered, “Nothing was done for him.” ⁴ The king then asked, “Who’s that in the courtyard?” For Haman had come into the outer courtyard of the king’s palace to speak to the king about hanging Mordekhai on the gallows he had prepared for him. ⁵ The king’s servants told him, “It’s Haman standing there in the courtyard.” The king said, “Have him come in.” ⁶ So Haman came in. The king said to him, “What should be done for a man that the king wants to honor?” Haman thought to himself, “Whom would the king want to honor more than me?” ⁷ So Haman answered the king, “For a man the king wants to honor, ⁸ have royal robes brought which the king himself wears and the horse the king himself rides, with a royal crown on its head. ⁹ The robes and the horse should be handed over to one of the king’s most respected officials, and they should put the robes on the man the king wants to honor and lead him on horseback through the streets of the city, proclaiming ahead of him, ‘This is what is done for a man whom the king wants to honor.’” ¹⁰ The king said to Haman, “Hurry, and take the robes and the horse, as you said, and do this for Mordekhai the Jew, who sits at the King’s Gate. Don’t leave out anything you mentioned.”

¹¹ So Haman took the robes and the horse, dressed Mordekhai and led him riding through the streets of the city, as he proclaimed ahead of him, “This is what is done for a man whom the king wants to honor.” ¹² Then Mordekhai returned to the King’s Gate; but Haman rushed home with his head covered in mourning.

¹³ After Haman had told Zeresh his wife and all his friends everything that had happened to him, his advisers and his wife Zeresh said to him, “If Mordekhai, before whom you have begun to fall, is a Jew, you will not get the better of him; on the contrary, your downfall before him is certain.”

¹⁴ While they were still talking with him, the king’s officials came, hurrying to bring Haman to the banquet Ester had prepared.

7 So the king and Haman went to Queen Ester’s banquet; ² and the king again said to Ester at the wine banquet, “Whatever your request, Queen Ester, you will be granted it; whatever you want, up to half the kingdom, it will be done.” ³ Ester the queen answered, “If I have won your favor, king, and if it pleases the king, then what I ask be given me is my own life and the lives of my people. ⁴ For we have been sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, killed, exterminated. If we had only been sold as men- and women-slaves, I would have remained quiet; since then [our] trouble would not have been worth the damage it would have caused the king [to alter the situation].” ⁵ King Achashverosh asked Ester the queen, “Who is he? Where is the man who dared to do such a thing?” ⁶ Ester said, “A ruthless enemy — it’s this wicked Haman!” Haman stood aghast, terrified before the king and queen. ⁷ In a rage, the king got up from the wine banquet and went out to the palace garden. But Haman remained, pleading with Ester the queen to spare his life; for he could see that the king had decided to do him in. ⁸ Haman had just fallen on the couch where Ester was, when the king returned from the palace garden to the wine banquet. He shouted, “Is he even going to rape the queen here in the palace, before my very eyes?” The moment these words left the king’s mouth, they covered Haman’s face. ⁹ Harvonah, one of the king’s attendants, said, “Look! The gallows seventy-five feet high that Haman made for Mordekhai, who spoke only good for the king, is standing at Haman’s house.” The king said, “Hang him on it.” ¹⁰ So they hanged Haman on the gallows he had prepared for Mordekhai. Then the king’s anger subsided.

12 But, brothers, I do not want you to go on being ignorant about the things of the Spirit. ² You know that when you were pagans, no matter how you felt you were being led, you were being led astray to idols, which can’t speak at all. ³ Therefore, I want to make it clear to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God ever says, “Yeshua is cursed!” and no one can say, “Yeshua is Lord,” except by the Ruach HaKodesh.

⁴ Now there are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit gives them. ⁵ Also there are different ways of serving, but it is the same Lord being served. ⁶ And there are different modes of working, but it is the same God working them all in everyone. ⁷ Moreover, to each person is given the particular manifestation of the Spirit that will be for the common good. ⁸ To one, through the Spirit, is given a word of wisdom; to another, a word of knowledge, in accordance with the same Spirit; ⁹ to another, faith, by the same Spirit; and to another, gifts of healing, by the one Spirit; ¹⁰ to another, the working of miracles; to another, prophecy; to another, the ability to judge between spirits; to another, the ability to speak in different kinds of tongues; and to yet another, the ability to interpret tongues. ¹¹ One and the same Spirit is at work in all these things, distributing to each person as he chooses. ¹² For just as the body is one but has many parts; and all the parts of the body, though many, constitute one body; so it is with the Messiah. ¹³ For it was by one Spirit that we were all immersed into one body, whether Jews or Gentiles, slaves or free; and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.

¹⁴ For indeed the body is not one part but many. ¹⁵ If the foot says, “I’m not a hand, so I’m not part of the body,” that doesn’t make it stop being part of the body. ¹⁶ And if the ear says, “I’m not an eye, so I’m not part of the body,” that doesn’t make it stop being part of the body. ¹⁷ If the whole body were an eye, how could it hear? If it were all hearing, how could it smell? ¹⁸ But as it is, God arranged each of the parts in the body exactly as he wanted them. ¹⁹ Now if they were all just one part, where would the body be? ²⁰ But as it is, there are indeed many parts, yet just one body. ²¹ So the eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you”; or the head to the feet, “I don’t need you.” ²² On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be less important turn out to be all the more necessary; ²³ and upon body parts which we consider less dignified we bestow greater dignity; and the parts that aren’t attractive are the ones we make as attractive as we can, ²⁴ while our attractive parts have no need for such treatment. Indeed, God has put the body together in such a way that he gives greater dignity to the parts that lack it, ²⁵ So that there will be no disagreements within the body, but rather all the parts will be equally concerned for all the others. ²⁶ Thus if one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it; and if one part is honored, all the parts share its happiness.