3 Some time later, King Ahasuerus promoted Haman, one of his officials (and the son of Hammedatha who was a descendant of Agag). The king gave Haman a very important position—more important than any of his other officials. 2 Then the king commanded that all his other officials had to bow down in front of Haman to honour him, and they were doing this at the king’s gate, except for Mordekai who refused to bow down to reverence Haman. 3 “Why are you disobeying the king’s command?” asked the other royal servants at the king’s gate. 4 Mordekai told them that it was because he was a Jew (and Jews only worship Yahweh). He didn’t listen to their warnings so they told Haman about it to see if he would tolerate Mordekai in keeping refusing to bow down. 5 When Haman saw that Mordekai would not bow down to him or show him reverence, he was furious. 6 But Haman despised the idea of just punishing Mordekai because he’d been told that Mordekai didn’t bow to him because Mordekai was a Jew. So Haman decided to annihilate all of Mordekai’s people, i.e., all the Jews throughout the kingdom of Ahasuerus.

7 In early April of the twelfth year of King Ahasuerus’ reign, Haman got his servants to throw dice to select the best month and the best day to kill the Jews, and the 13th of March was chosen.

8 Then Haman went to King Ahasuerus and said, “Your Majesty, there is a certain group of people who live among the other peoples in every province of your empire. They have their own set of laws, so they don’t obey your laws. It’s not good for you to allow them to continue to live in your empire. 9 Your majesty, if you approve of this plan, then write a decree saying that all of the Jews must be destroyed. When they’re dead, we can take all of their possessions, and from that I will give 300 tons of silver to your administrators for them to put into your royal treasuries.”

10 This seemed sensible to the king so he removed his signet ring from his finger and he gave it[fn] to Haman (the son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, the adversary of the Jews). 11 The king told Haman, “You can keep the money for yourself, and you can do whatever you want to do with those people.”

12 On the thirteenth day of that same month, Haman called in the royal scribes, and he dictated a letter to them. He told them to send copies to the royal officials, the governors of each province, and the leaders of each people group within the empire. The scribes translated the letter so it could be sent to each province using its own alphabet and to each people group in its own language. To show that he was sending the letter under the king’s own authority, Haman sealed each copy of the letter with the ring that had the king’s official seal on it. 13 Couriers delivered the letters to the officials in every province in the empire. The letters said to completely destroy all the Jews, including the children and women, on a single day. That was to be the thirteenth day of March early in the following year. The letters also stated that those who killed the Jews could take everything that belonged to them. 14 The letter told the officials to display copies where everyone could see them—that way all the people in every single province would know that the king had commanded this, and they could get ready for when the day came.

15 So couriers hurried off with the letters as the king had commanded. A herald in the capital city of Shushan also proclaimed what the letters said. Then the king and Haman relaxed and drank together, but there was total confusion in Shushan about how all of this would work out.