1 The following events happened during the reign of King Ahasuerus.[ref] (Also known as King Xerxes, he ruled the empire of Persia with 127 provinces from India all the way across to Ethiopia.) 2 In those days, he ruled his empire from a city called Shushan,[fn] Persia’s capital.

3 In the third year of his reign, he hosted a celebration for all of his officials and for every important person who worked for him, as well as the officers who served in the army of the combined empire of Persia and Media, the wealthy landowners, and the officials of the provinces. The king was present in person to host the celebration 4 which, over a period of six months, would display the incredible wealth and prestige of his empire and his personal wealth and power.

5 Then at the end of that time, the king hosted another celebration, but this time for all the people in the royal fort in Shushan, from the nobles to the least prestigious. He held this celebration over an entire week in the enclosed garden of the royal palace. 6 There were white and blue curtains hanging from white and purple cords attached to silver rings on marble pillars. The guests reclined on gold and silver couches set on a mosaic floor that was made of red and white marble, and mother-of-pearl and other expensive stones. 7 Drinks were served in golden goblets, and each one was a unique design. The king’s wine seemed limitless as he displayed his generosity, 8 and it was served according to his rule: There is no compulsion to drink, but all of his servants were to give each guest however much they wanted.

9 Meanwhile, Queen Vashti was hosting a celebration for the women in a different part of the king’s royal palace.

10 On the seventh day of the celebrations, when the king was feeling cheery from his wine-drinking, he ordered seven of his chief servants (Mehuman, Biztha, Harbona, Bigtha, Abagtha, Zethar, and Karkas) 11 to bring Queen Vashti, wearing her royal crown, to him in order to show her beauty to the people and the officials, because she was very attractive. 12 But when the servants came and told her the king’s command, Queen Vashti refused to come. When the king found this out, he got very angry and sat there raging. 13 So he called over his advisors who knew the law and could make good decisions, and discussed with them what he should do. 14 (His closest advisors were Karshena, Shethar, Admatha, Tarshish, Meres, Marsena, and Memukan. These seven officials were from various places in the empire of Persia and Media and they advised the king personally, thus making them the most powerful officials in the empire.) 15 “According to our law,” the king asked, “what should be done with Queen Vashti, since she refused to obey my command when the servants passed it on to her?”

16 Then Memukan answered the king, speaking loudly enough that both the king and his officials could hear. “Queen Vashti has done wrong,” he said, “and not only against the king. She has also done wrong against all the officials and people groups in all the provinces that King Ahasuerus rules! 17 Soon women all over the empire will hear about what the queen did and they’ll say, ‘King Ahasuerus commanded his servants to bring Queen Vashti to him, but she didn’t go! Then women will stop respecting their husbands. 18 Even today, the leading women of Persia and Media will hear what the queen did and start doing the same to their husbands who are officials, and this will cause a wave of contempt and anger. 19 If it pleases you to do so, your majesty, you should personally issue a royal decree and have it added to the laws of Persia and Media which cannot be repealed. This decree should say that Vashti can never again come into your presence, and then you should choose a different woman for the royal position—someone who’s better than her. 20 Your decree will be proclaimed right through your empire, even though it’s so huge, and then all women, irrespective of their status or position, will honour their husbands.

21 This seemed like a good idea to the king and his officials, so King Ahasuerus followed the advice of Memukan 22 and sent letters to every province in his empire. He wrote to every province using its own alphabet and to each people group in its own language. The letters said that men should be the masters over their wives and children, and that a husband should be able to give orders to his wife in his own native language that she should understand and obey.

2 Some time later when King Ahasuerus no longer felt so angry, he started to miss Vashti. But when she’d disobeyed his command, he had made a decree that she could never come into his presence again. 2 So some of the young men who served the king suggested to him, “Your majesty, you should get a new wife for yourself. You could tell your servants to look for young virgins who are very beautiful. 3 You could assign officers in each province of your empire to bring every virgin who is very beautiful here to your capital city of Shushan. They could stay in the harem for virgins under the custody of Hegai, the castrated royal guardian who takes care of the young women who live there and he could arrange for them to receive beauty treatments. 4 Then you could decide which young woman you like best and then make her queen instead of Vashti.”

The king liked what they suggested, so he did it.

5 At that time, there was a Jewish man named Mordekai living in the capital city of Shushan. (He was from the tribe of Benjamin: his father was Jair, his grandfather was Shimei, and his great-grandfather was Kish 6 who’d been taken away from Jerusalem and led to Babylon when King Nebuchadnezzer of Babylon had exiled Jeconiah, the king of Judah, along with many of his people.)[ref] 7 Now Mordekai was taking care of his cousin, who was an orphan. When her father and mother had died, Mordekai had adopted her as his own daughter. Her Hebrew name was Hadassah, and her Persian name was Esther. Esther was now a young woman and she was exceptionally attractive.

8 So when the king’s command and decree became known, many young women were being brought into the capital city of Shushan and placed under Hegai’s charge, and this is what happened to Esther. (Hegai was the overseer of the women.) 9 Hegai was very impressed with Esther, and he treated her favourably. He quickly arranged for Esther to receive her beauty treatments and her allotment of food, as well as choosing seven female servants from the king’s palace and assigning them to be her personal attendants. He also moved Esther and her attendants to the best rooms in the harem for virgins. 10 (Esther hadn’t revealed her family ties or her Jewishness to anyone, because Mordekai had instructed her not to.)

11 Every day Mordekai would walk around in front of the courtyard of the women’s harem to find out from others how Esther was doing and how she was being treated.

12 Each young woman would get twelve months of beauty treatment according to the Persian law for women—there would be six months of applying oil of myrrh, then six months of perfumes and other lotions designed for women. Then their turn would come, one at a time, to be taken to King Ahasuerus. 13 The young woman was allowed to take whatever she wanted from the harem when she went to the king’s house. 14 She’d be taken across in the evening, and in the morning she’d be led out to the other harem which was for the concubines. (That harem was overseen by Shaashgaz, another castrated royal guardian.) The women taken there wouldn’t go again to the king’s house unless he had especially liked them and summoned her back by name.

15 Now Esther was the daughter of Mordekai’s uncle, Abihail, from whom Mordekai had adopted her as his own daughter. When it was her turn to go to the king, she didn’t ask for anything other than what Hegai, the king’s trusted official in charge of the harem, had advised, and everyone who saw Esther liked her. 16 So Esther was taken to King Ahasuerus at his royal palace in January, in the seventh year of his reign, 17 and the king loved Esther more than any of the other women. He treated her more kindly and more favourably than any of the other young women who had become his concubines. He put a royal crown on her head and made her the new queen to replace Vashti. 18 Then the king hosted a large celebration and invited all his officials and servants to a feast to celebrate Esther becoming queen. He proclaimed that this would be a time to celebrate for people in all of the provinces of his empire when they wouldn’t have to pay taxes, and he gave many generous gifts.

19 Later on, King Ahasuerus had his officers bring more virgins to Shushan. During this time, Mordekai had been given a position by the king so he sat there at the king’s gate. 20 Esther had still not told anyone that she was Jewish because Mordekai had warned her not to tell anyone. What’s more, she continued to follow all of Mordekai’s instructions, just as she had done when she was still under his guardianship.

21 One day when Mordekai was on duty at the king’s gate, two of the king’s guards who protected the doorway to the king’s private rooms became angry with the king and so they planned to assassinate King Ahasuerus. (Their names were Bigthan and Teresh.) 22 But when Mordekai heard what they were planning, he told Queen Esther about it and she told the king, explaining that Mordekai had given her the information. 23 When the matter was investigated and the facts discovered, both conspirators were impaled on sharpened wooden poles, and in the presence of the king, the incident was recorded in the royal record of events.

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.

4 When Mordekai found out about what had been done, he tore his clothes and dressed in sackcloth and threw ashes over himself (as a sign of mourning or distress) and went out into the city centre, wailing loudly and bitterly. 2 But no one was wearing mourning garb was allowed inside the king’s gate, so when Mordekai reached the gate, he had to stay just outside it. 3 In every province of the empire, the letter that said to destroy the Jews was publicly displayed and when the Jews heard about it, they were incredibly upset. They skipped meals and wailed loudly, and many of them also wore sackcloth and threw ashes on themselves and lay on the ground.

4 When Queen Esther’s young female attendants came with her guardians and told her what was going on outside, even the queen became very scared. She sent Mordekai some good clothes to wear instead of the sackcloth, but he wouldn’t accept them. 5 The king had assigned some of the royal guardians to Esther personally, so Esther called for one of them—a man named Hathak. She told him to go out and speak with Mordekai and find out what he was so distressed about. 6 So Hathak went out to talk to Mordekai who was out in the plaza in front of the king’s gate. 7 Mordekai told him everything that Haman was planning to do and even told him how much money Haman had said the king would get for his treasuries if the king commanded people to kill all the Jews. 8 Mordekai also gave Hathak a copy of the letter that the announcers had read out loud in Shushan, that said that people must kill all the Jews. He told Hathak to show the letter to Esther so that she would know exactly what it said and also told him to urge her to go to the king personally and to beg him desperately to save her people from destruction. 9 So Hathak returned to the queen and told her what Mordekai had said, 10 and Esther told him to go back to Mordekai with this message: 11 “There’s a law about going to the king that applies to everyone in the kingdom, both men and women. If anyone goes into the inner courtyard of the palace, where the king can see them, and the king has not summoned them, that person will be executed. Only if the king holds out his golden scepter to them, then they will live. (Everyone in the whole empire knows this law.) The king hasn’t called for me in over a month, and if I go in without being summoned, I could be put to death.”

12 So Hathak went back to Mordekai and told him what the queen had said. 13 Mordekai told Hathak to tell this to Esther: “Don’t imagine that just because you live there in the king’s palace that you’ll be safe when they kill all the other Jews. 14 If you say nothing at all now, someone from some other place will rescue the Jews, but you and your relatives will not survive. Who knows, perhaps it was for a time just like this that God allowed you to become queen?”

15 Then Esther sent this reply to Mordekai: 16 “Go and assemble all the Jews who live here in Shushan, and tell them to fast and pray for my sake—tell them to not eat or drink anything for three days and three nights. My female attendants and I will also fast in the same way. At the end of the three days, I will go in to talk to the king even though it’s against the law. I will do that even if it costs me my life.”

17 So Mordekai went and did everything that Esther had told him to do.

5 Three days later, the Queen Esther put on her royal robes and went and stood in the inner courtyard of the palace, across from the king’s house. He was in the royal palace, sitting on the royal throne and facing the room’s entrance. 2 As soon as the king noticed Esther standing there in the courtyard, he was very pleased to see her. So he held out his golden scepter to her and Esther came up to the throne and touched the top of the scepter. 3 “Why have you come here, Queen Esther?” the king asked. “What do you want? Tell me, and I’ll give you anything you ask for—even half of the empire.”

4 “If it pleases your majesty,” Esther replied, “please come with Haman today to the banquet that I’ve prepared for you.”

5 The king said to his servants, “Go and get Haman” the king told his servants, “and bring him quickly so that we can do what the queen has asked us.” So the king and Haman went to the banquet that Esther had had prepared for them. 6 While they were drinking wine, the king said to Esther, “Now please tell me what you really want. I’ll give you anything you ask for, no matter how much it is. I truly mean what I am saying.”

7 “This is what I really want.” Esther replied. 8 “Your majesty, if you’re pleased with me and if you’re happy to give me what I want, please come with Haman to another banquet that I’ll prepare for you tomorrow and I’ll answer your question then.”

9 Haman was feeling very happy as he left the banquet that day. But then he saw Mordekai sitting at the king’s gate and noticed that Mordekai didn’t stand up or show fearful reverence to him. This made Haman furious with Mordekai 10 but he restrained himself and went home. Then he sent for his friends and brought in his wife, Zeresh, 11 boasting to them about how rich he was and about how many sons he had, and how the king had promoted him many times and given him a position above all of the other officials and administrators. 12 “And that is not all,” Haman added. “I was the only one that Queen Esther invited to go with the king to a banquet that she prepared for us today. And she’s also invited only me to go with the king again tomorrow. 13 However, I still can’t be happy as long as I keep seeing that Jew, Mordekai, sitting there at the king’s gate.”

14 Then Zeresh his wife and all his friends said to him, “Get them to install 25-metre high pole, and in the morning get permission from the king, and get them to impale Mordekai on it. Then you can go with the king to the banquet and enjoy yourself.”

That idea sounded good to Haman, so he got the pole erected.

6 That night the king was unable to sleep so he ordered the royal records to be fetched and to be read to him. 2 The records mentioned that Bigthan and Teresh, two of the royal guardians who protected the doorway to the king’s private quarters, had planned to assassinate the king, but that Mordekai had reported it. 3 “What honour or recognition did I give Mordekai for saving my life?” the king asked.

“Nothing was done for him,” replied the young men who were attending him.

4 At that moment, Haman had entered the outer courtyard of the king’s house. He had come to tell the king that he wanted to execute Mordekai on the pole that he’d had set up for him.

“Who’s out in the courtyard?” the king asked.

5 “Haman’s out there standing in the courtyard,” replied the young men.

“Bring him in then,” the king instructed.

6 When Haman came in, the king asked him, “What should I do for a man that I would really like to honour?”

Haman thought to himself, “Surely it must be me that the king would like to honour more than anyone else?” 7 so he replied to the king, “If you really want to honour someone, 8 tell your servants to bring one of your own royal robes that you have already worn yourself and also bring a horse that you have already ridden yourself and put a royal crown on its head. 9 Then have one of your most noble officials present the man with the robe and the horse. Have your servants put the robe on the man whom you really want to honour and have them seat that man on the horse and then lead the horse through the public square of the city while they shout out to everyone in front of them, ‘The king is doing this because he really wants to honour this man!’ ”

10 The king agreed so he replied to Haman, “Go quickly and take the robe and the horse and do what you’ve just described for Mordekai the Jew who sits by the gate to the palace. Make sure that you do absolutely everything that you’ve said.”

11 So Haman got the robe and the horse and put the robe on Mordekai, seated him on the horse, and then led the horse through the public square of the city. As he did, he shouted out to everyone in front of him, “The king is doing this because he really wants to honour this man!”

12 Afterwards, Mordekai returned to the king’s gate but Haman hurried to his house, covering his head like a mourner. 13 At home he explained to Zeresh his wife and to all his friends everything that had happened to him. Then his advisors and his wife said to him, “Mordekai has begun to defeat you and since he is one of the Jewish people, you won’t win against him—instead, he’ll certainly defeat you.”