Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

David wrote this song.

Thank God for who he is

Mordecai saves the king

¹⁹ Some time later, the young women all came together again in the harem. At this time, Mordecai was sitting at the king's gate, as one of his officers.^[a]

²⁰ Esther still had not told anyone that she was a Jew. Mordecai had told her that she should not tell anyone. She continued to obey Mordecai, as she had done when she lived with him as his daughter.

²¹ One day, Mordecai was sitting at the king's gate. While he was there, two of the king's eunuchs, Bigthana and Teresh, became angry with King Xerxes. They decided that they would kill the king. ²² Mordecai heard about this. So he told Queen Esther about it. Queen Esther told the king what Mordecai had said. ²³ The king sent his men to see if it was true. When he discovered that Mordecai had told the truth, he said that the two eunuchs must die. So his officers hanged them from a wooden tower until they were dead. They wrote about this event in the history book, while the king watched.

Haman is angry with Mordecai

3 After some time, King Xerxes gave one of his officers greater authority. The officer's name was Haman. He was the son of Hammedatha, a descendant of Agag. Haman became the most important officer who served the king. ² The king commanded that all the royal officers at the king's gate must bend down low down to Haman. So they all gave Haman honour when he passed them. Only Mordecai would not bend down and give honour to Haman.^[b]

³ The officers at the king's gate asked Mordecai, ‘Why do you not obey the king's command?’ ⁴ They warned Mordecai every day. But he would not agree to bend down low to Haman. So the officers told Haman about this. Mordecai had told them that he was a Jew. So they wanted to know if Haman would let Mordecai do this.

⁵ When Haman realized that Mordecai would not give him honour, he became very angry. ⁶ But he did not want to destroy only Mordecai. Now he knew that Mordecai was a Jew, he decided to destroy all the Jews who lived in Xerxes' whole kingdom.

¹⁵ One day, about 120 people who believed in Jesus were meeting together. Peter stood up and he said to them, ¹⁶ ‘My friends, long ago, the Holy Spirit gave King David a message to speak from God.^[a] He spoke about the things that Judas would do. Judas was the one who showed the soldiers how to catch Jesus. These things had to happen in the way that David wrote in the Bible long ago.^{[b] 17} Judas belonged to our group of disciples. Jesus chose him to work together with us.’

¹⁸ Judas received some money for the bad thing that he did. He bought a field with that money. But he fell down in that field and he died. His body broke open and the inside parts of his body poured out. ¹⁹ All the people who lived in Jerusalem heard about his death. So they called that field ‘Akeldama’ in their own language. ‘Akeldama’ means ‘The Field of Blood’.^[c]

²⁰ Peter then said, ‘This is what King David wrote in the book of Psalms: