The Book of Esther

1 And in Xerxes’ days—that was the Xerxes who reigned from India to Nubia, a hundred and twenty-seven provinces 2 —in those days, when King Xerxes took his seat on his royal throne in Susa Citadel 3 in the year three of his reign, he gave a banquet to all his generals and officers, having before him the troops of Persia and Media, the highest nobles, and the provincial generals, 4 exhibiting his glorious royal wealth and the exquisite magnificence of his greatness for a long time, a hundred and eighty days; 5 and when these days were completed the king gave a banquet to all the people that were to be found in Susa Citadel, great and small, for seven days in the garden court of the royal palace. 6* White muslin and violet cloth was fastened with white linen and purple cords to silver rods and marble columns; couches of gold and silver stood on a floor paved with four colors of marble; 7 and drinks were poured in golden vessels, some vessels different from others, and there was royal wine in abundance in accordance with the king’s custom; 8 and the drinking was on the principle of no compulsion, for the king had given this fundamental order to the head of every department of his household, to do as each man pleased. 9* Queen Vashti also gave a women’s banquet in King Xerxes’ royal residence.

10 On the seventh day, when the king was feeling jolly with wine, he told Mehuman, Biztha, Harbona, Bigtha, Vaabagtha, Zethar, and Carcas, the seven eunuchs in attendance before King Xerxes, 11 to bring Queen Vashti before the king in her royal tiara to let the people and the generals see her beauty; for she was handsome. 12 But Queen Vashti refused to come at the king’s word by the eunuchs; and the king was much incensed, and his temper fired up, 13* and the king said to the wise men who knew the times (for thus the king’s business came before all who knew law and adjudication) 14* and those who were next to him, Carshena, Shethar, Admatha, Tarshish, Meres, Marsena, Memucan, the seven princes of Persia and Media, those who saw the king’s face and occupied the foremost places in the government, 15 “On what principle is Queen Vashti to be dealt with for her not having done as King Xerxes by the eunuchs told her to?”

16 And Memucan said before the king and the princes “Queen Vashti has misbehaved not only against the king but against all the princes and against the people in all King Xerxes’ provinces; 17 for the queen’s story will go out to all women to bring their husbands into contempt with them, when people say ‘King Xerxes ordered Queen Vashti brought before him and she did not come,’ 18* and this day the princesses of Persia and Media, who will have heard the queen’s story, will be saying plenty of contemptuous and exasperating things to all the king’s princes. 19** If the king thinks best, let an official announcement be issued with your sanction and engrossed in the laws of Persia and Media to be permanent, that Vashti shall never come before King Xerxes, and the king shall give her position as queen to a better, 20 so that the king’s sentence that he has executed shall be heard of throughout his realm, great as it is, and all women shall pay honor to their husbands, great and small.”

21 And the king and the princes approved the idea; and the king did as Memucan had proposed, 22* and sent writs to all the king’s provinces, to each province in its own form of writing and to each people in its own language, that every man should be master in his house and talk in his people’s language.

2 After these events, when King Xerxes’ temper had gone down he remembered Vashti, and what she had done and what decision had been made about her. 2 But the king’s pages who were in attendance on him said “Let handsome maiden girls be hunted up for the king, 3 and let the king appoint commissioners in all the provinces of his realm and let them gather every handsome maiden girl to the women’s house in Susa Citadel, into the hands of the king’s eunuch Hegai the guardian of the women, and cleansing-creams be furnished them, 4 and the girl that the king likes best be queen in Vashti’s place.” And the king approved the idea and did so.

5 There was a certain Jew in Susa Citadel named Mordocai the son of Jair the son of Shimei the son of Kish, a Benjamite, 6 who had been deported from Jerusalem with the deportees that were deported with King Jeconiah of Judah whom King Nebucadnessar of Babylon deported; 7 and he was foster-father to his cousin Hadassah (that is, Esther) because she had no father or mother. And the girl was shapely and handsome; and at the death of her father and mother Mordocai had adopted her. 8 And when the king’s announcement and his law were heard of, and when many girls were being gathered in Hegai’s hands in Susa Citadel, Esther was taken to the king’s house into the hands of Hegai the guardian of the women. 9 And he liked the girl and was friendly to her, and made haste to give her her cleansing-creams and her rations and to give her the seven choicest maids out of the king’s house, and gave her and her maids preferential treatment in the women’s house. 10 Esther had not told her nationality and lineage, because Mordocai had charged her not to. 11 But every single day Mordocai walked in front of the court of the women’s house to find out how Esther was and what was being done with her.

12* And when each girl’s turn came to go in to King Xerxes at the end of twelve months of the women’s regular treatment (for that was the way their time of cleansing was to be gone through, six months with the oil of myrrh and six months with the spices and the women’s cleansing-creams), 13 the girl went in to the king on these terms: she was given anything that she said, to go in from the women’s house to the king’s house with; 14* in the evening she went in, and in the morning she came back to the women’s house, a second one, into the hands of the king’s eunuch Shaʽashgaz, the guardian of the concubines; she did not go in to the king again unless the king had taken a fancy to her and she was called for by name. 15 But when it came the turn of Esther the daughter of Mordocai’s uncle Abihail, whom he had adopted, to go in to the king, she did not ask for anything but what the king’s eunuch Hegai, the guardian of the women, said; and Esther won the admiration of all who saw her.

16 And Esther was taken to King Xerxes, into his royal residence, in the tenth month, that is the month of Tebeth, in the year seven of his reign. 17 And the king loved Esther better than any of the women, and she won more admiration and favor from him than any of the maidens; and he set a royal tiara on her head and made her queen in Vashti’s place. 18 And the king gave a great banquet to all his generals and officers, the Banquet for Esther, and enacted a suspension of taxation for the provinces, and gave gifts of food in accordance with the king’s custom.

19 And when maidens were being gathered a second time, Mordocai sitting in the king’s gate, 20 —Esther was not telling her lineage and nationality, as Mordocai had charged her not to, and Esther did as Mordocai said since she had been in his family as foster-daughter, 21 —in those days, Mordocai sitting in the king’s gate, the king’s two eunuchs Bigthan and Teresh, two of the guardians of the threshold, were out of temper and proposed to lay hands on King Xerxes; 22 and the affair became known to Mordocai, and he informed Queen Esther, and Esther told the king, using Mordocai’s name, 23 and the matter was investigated and the facts detected, and they were both impaled; and it was written down in the chronicles before the king.

3 After these events the king made a great man of Haman the son of Hammedatha the Agagite, and elevated him and set his chair above all the princes he had about him, 2 and all the officials in the king’s gate bowed and did reverence to Haman; for the king had given such orders for him. But Mordocai did not bow nor do reverence. 3 And the officials in the king’s gate said to Mordocai “How comes it you are going against the king’s orders?” 4* and when they said so to him day by day and he did not listen to them they told Haman, to see whether the position Mordocai had taken would stand. For he had told them he was a Jew.

5 And Haman saw that Mordocai was not bowing and doing reverence to him; and Haman was filled with ire, 6* and scorned to lay hands on Mordocai alone (for they had told him Mordocai’s nationality), and Haman undertook to root out all the Jews in Xerxes’ empire, Mordocai’s people. 7** In the first month (that is, the month of Nisan) in the year twelve of Xerxes’ reign, they cast pur (that is, the lot) before Haman from day to day and from month to month, and the lot fell on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month (that is, the month of Adar).

8 And Haman said to King Xerxes “There is one people scattered and keeping separate among the peoples in all the provinces of your empire, and their laws are different from those of any people, and they do not comply with the king’s laws; and it does not pay the king to tolerate them. 9 If the king thinks best, let writs be issued to destroy them; and I will turn over ten thousand talents of silver into the hands of the administrators to put into the royal treasury.”

10 And the king took his ring off his hand and gave it to Haman the son of Hammedatha the Agagite, the Jews’ assailant; 11 and the king said to Haman “The silver is given to you, and so is the people, to do as you think best with.”

12 And he called the king’s secretaries in the first month, on the thirteenth day in it, and writs were issued, in full accordance with Haman’s orders, to the king’s satraps and to the governors over each province and to the princes of each people, each province in its own form of writing and each people in its own language, written in King Xerxes’ name and sealed with his royal ring. 13* And there was sending of writs by couriers to all the king’s provinces to kill and destroy and root out all the Jews from boy to old man, children and women, on one day, on the thirteenth of the twelfth month (that is, the month of Adar), and to take their plunder. 14 A copy of the document, to be promulgated as law in each and every province, was publicly displayed to all the peoples, that they be ready on this day. 15 The couriers went out posthaste by royal order, and the law was promulgated in Susa Citadel, and the king and Haman sat down to drink; and the city of Susa was in confusion.

4 And Mordocai, finding out all that had been done, tore his clothes and put on a sackcloth and ashes and went out through the middle of the city giving a loud and bitter cry. 2 And he came in front of the king’s gate (for there was no going into the king’s gate in sackcloth costume). 3* —And in each and every province in the place where the king’s word and law arrived there was great mourning of the Jews, and fasting and weeping and wailing, and sackcloth and ashes were spread for most of them. 4 —And Esther’s maids and eunuchs came in and told her; and the queen was quite horrified and sent clothing to dress Mordocai and get his sackcloth off him, but he would not receive it. 5* And Esther called Hathac, one of the king’s eunuchs whom he had set to wait on her, and gave him an errand to Mordocai to find out what was the story and why. 6 And Hathac went out to Mordocai in the city square in front of the king’s gate, 7 and Mordocai told him everything that had happened to him and the details about the money Haman had said he would turn over to the royal treasury for the Jews, to have them destroyed, 8* and gave him a copy of the engrossed law that had been promulgated in Susa to root them out, which he was to show to Esther and tell her of, and to charge her to go in to the king and supplicate him and intercede with him for her people. 9 And Hathac went in and told Esther what Mordocai said.

10 But Esther said to Hathac and ordered him to tell Mordocai 11 “All the king’s household and the people of the king’s provinces know that for any man or woman who goes in to the king in the inner court uninvited the law is uniform to put him to death except for the one to whom the king holds out the golden scepter to grant him life; but I have not been summoned in to the king these thirty days”; 12* and he told Mordocai what Esther said.

13* But Mordocai told him to take back to Esther the word “Do not imagine that you in the king’s house will get away with your life any more than all the Jews. 14 For if you do keep silence at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will present itself from elsewhere, but you and your family will perish. And who knows if it was for an occasion like this that you came to queenhood?”

15 And Esther told him to take back word to Mordocai 16 “Go gather all the Jews that are to be found in Susa and fast for me, and do not eat nor drink for three days, night and day; I and my maids will fast in the same way too; and with that I will go in to the king, which is not according to law, and when I perish I perish.” 17 And Mordocai went along and did just as Esther ordered him to.

5* And on the third day Esther put on royal robes and stood in the inner court of the king’s house opposite the king’s house, while the king was sitting on his royal throne in the royal house opposite the door of the house. 2 And when the king saw Queen Esther standing in the court he admired her; and the king held out for Esther the golden scepter he had in his hand, and Esther came up and touched the head of the scepter. 3 And the king said to her “What is the matter, Queen Esther? what is the boon you want? up to half the empire, it shall be given you.”

4 And Esther said “If the king thinks best, let the king and Haman come today to the banquet I have got up for him.”

5 And the king said “Hurry up with Haman to do as Esther says.” And the king and Haman went in to the banquet Esther had got up. 6* And the king said to Esther over the wine “What have you to ask for? it shall be given you; what is the boon you want? up to half the empire, it shall be given you.”

7 And Esther answered “What I have to ask for, and the boon I want, is—please, 8 if the king thinks best to give what I have to ask for and to take action for the boon I want, let the king and Haman come to the banquet I have got up, and tomorrow I will do as the king says.”

9 And Haman went out merry and jolly that day; but when Haman saw Mordocai in the king’s gate and he did not stand up nor tremble for him, Haman was filled with ire at Mordocai. 10 But Haman repressed his feelings, and went into his house and sent for his intimate friends and his wife Zeresh; 11 and Haman gave them an account of his imposing wealth and the number of his sons, and all that the king had done in making him a great man and elevating him above the princes and officials; 12 and Haman said “Besides, Queen Esther did not let in with the king to the banquet she had got up anybody but me; and tomorrow too I am invited to her with the king. 13 But all this does me no good anytime I see the Jew Mordocai sitting in the king’s gate.”

14 And his wife Zeresh and all his intimate friends said to him “Have them make a stake seventy feet high, and in the morning tell the king to have them impale Mordocai on it, and go in merrily with the king to the banquet.” And Haman liked the idea and made the stake.

6 That night the king’s sleep would not come, and he ordered the book of history brought, the chronicles, and they were being read before him. 2 And it was found set down that Mordocai had reported about the king’s eunuchs Bigthana and Teresh, two of the guardians of the threshold, who had proposed to lay hands on King Xerxes.

3 And the king said “What honor and distinction was shown to Mordocai for this?”

And the pages in attendance on the king said “Nothing was done about him.”

4 And the king said “Who is in the court?”

And Haman had come to the outer court of the king’s house to tell the king to impale Mordocai on the stake he had got ready for him. 5 And the king’s pages said to him “There is Haman standing in the court.”

And the king said “Let him come in.”

6* And Haman came in, and the king said to him “What should be done for the man the king is pleased to honor?”

And Haman thought to himself “Whom would the king be more pleased to honor than me?” 7 And Haman said to the king “A man the king is pleased to honor 8 —let them bring royal robes that the king has worn, and a pony that the king has ridden and on the head of which a royal tiara is set, 9*** and give the robes and the pony into the hands of someone of the king’s foremost princes, and let them enrobe the man the king is pleased to honor and take him on the pony through the city square and call out before him ‘This is the way the man the king is pleased to honor is treated.’”

10 And the king said to Haman “Right off, take the robes and the pony as you propose and do so for the Jew Mordocai who sits in the king’s gate; do not omit a point of all you have proposed.”

11 And Haman took the robes and the pony and enrobed Mordocai and gave him the ride through the city square and called out before him “This is the way the man the king is pleased to honor is treated.” 12 And Mordocai went back to the king’s gate; and Haman bolted home mourning and muffling his head. 13 And Haman told his wife Zeresh and all his intimate friends the story of all that had happened to him; and his wise men and his wife Zeresh said to him “If Mordocai, before whom you have begun to fall, comes of the blood of the Jews, you will not be a match for him but are to fall before him.”

14 While they were still talking with him the king’s eunuchs arrived

7 and hurried Haman to the banquet Esther had got up, and the king and Haman went in to drink with Queen Esther.

2* And again on the second day the king said to Esther over the wine “What have you to ask for, Queen Esther? it shall be given you; what is the boon you want? up to half the empire, it shall be done.”

3* And Queen Esther answered “If I am in favor with the king and if the king thinks best, let me be given my life as the thing I ask for and my people as the boon I want; for we have been sold, I and my people, to be killed, destroyed, rooted out. 4 And if it were that we had been sold for slaves I would have kept silence because the suffering would not have been worth troubling the king about.”

5* And King Xerxes said to Queen Esther “Who is this, and where is he, whose heart has excited him to do such a thing?”

6 And Esther said “A hostile and malicious man—this wretch Haman.” And Haman was dazed with fright before the king and the queen.

7 And the king in the heat of his temper got up from the wine-table into the palace garden, while Haman stood to beg Queen Esther for his life, because he saw that he was in for trouble from the king. 8 And the king came back from the palace garden to the banquet house, and Haman had thrown himself down on the couch Esther was on; and the king said “Even forcing the queen in the house with me?” and as the words came out of the king’s mouth they muffled Haman’s face. 9* And Harbonah, one of the eunuchs, said before the king “Besides, there at Haman’s house stands the seventy-feet-high stake Haman made for Mordocai who spoke out for the king’s good.” And the king said “Impale him on it”; 10 and they impaled Haman on the stake he had got ready for Mordocai, and the king’s temper went down.

8 That day King Xerxes gave Queen Esther the house of Haman the Jews’ assailant; and Mordocai came in before the king, because Esther had told what he was to her, 2 and the king took off his ring, of which he had divested Haman, and gave it to Mordocai. And Esther set Mordocai over Haman’s house.

3 And Esther spoke before the king again, throwing herself down before his feet and weeping and begging him to avert the mischief of Haman the Agagite and his scheme which he had contrived against the Jews. 4 And the king held out the golden scepter for Esther; and Esther rose and stood before the king, 5 and said “If the king thinks best and if I am in favor with him, and the proposal seems to the king to be advantageous and the king likes me, let something be written to reverse the writs contrived by Haman the son of Hammedatha the Agagite which he indited to destroy the Jews in all the king’s provinces; 6 for how can I look on at the disaster that is to befall my people, and how can I look on at the destruction of my race?”

7 And King Xerxes said to Queen Esther and to Mordocai the Jew “Here I have given Esther Haman’s house, and him they have impaled, for having laid hands on the Jews; 8 now write yourselves about the Jews the sort of thing that seems best to you, in the king’s name, and seal it with the king’s ring; for a document that has been written in the king’s name and sealed with the king’s ring is not to be reversed.”

9 And the king’s secretaries were called on that date, in the third month (that is, the month of Sivan), on the twenty-third of it, and just such things as Mordocai ordered were written to the Jews and to the satraps and the governors and the princes of the provinces from India to Nubia, a hundred and twenty-seven provinces, each province in its own form of writing and each people in its own language, and to the Jews in their form of writing and in their language; 10* and it was written in King Xerxes’ name and sealed with the king’s ring. And Mordocai sent writs by pony-couriers, mounted on government blood-horses of choice strains, 11* that the king had granted to the Jews in each and every city to assemble and make a stand for their lives, to kill and destroy and root out every force of people or province that should assail them, children and women, and to take their plunder, 12 on one day in all King Xerxes’ provinces, on the thirteenth of the twelfth month (that is, the month of Adar). 13 A copy of the document, to be promulgated as law in each and every province, was publicly displayed to all the peoples, that the Jews be ready on this day to take vengeance on their enemies. 14 The couriers, mounted on the government blood-horses, hurried out posthaste by royal order, and the law was promulgated in Susa Citadel. 15 And Mordocai went out from before the king in royal dress of violet and white, with a great gold coronet and a mantle of lawn and purple; and the city of Susa was whooping and making merry; 16 to the Jews came light and gladness and joy and honor. 17 And in each and every province and in each and every city in the place where the king’s word and law arrived there was merrymaking and rejoicing of the Jews, banqueting and festival; and many of the populace turned Jews because dread of the Jews had fallen on them.

9* And in the twelfth month (that is, the month of Adar), on the thirteenth day of it, when the king’s word and law were to take effect, on the day when the Jews’ enemies had depended on having them at their mercy it was upset so that the Jews had their haters at their mercy. 2 The Jews assembled in their cities in all King Xerxes’ provinces to lay hands on those who meant harm to them, and not a man stood his ground before them, because the dread of them had fallen on all the peoples; 3 and all the princes of the provinces and the satraps and the governors and the king’s administrators backed up the Jews because the dread of Mordocai had fallen on them; 4 for Mordocai was a great man in the king’s house, and talk of him was going through all the provinces because the man Mordocai was growing greater and greater.

5* And the Jews dealt death among all their enemies, cutting down and killing and destroying, and did as they pleased with those who hated them. 6 And in Susa Citadel the Jews killed and destroyed five hundred men; 7 and they killed Parshandatha and Dalphon and Aspatha 8 and Poratha and Adalja and Aridatha 9 and Parmashatta and Arisai and Aridai and Vaizatha, 10 the ten sons of Haman the son of Hammedatha, the Jews’ assailant; but they did not lay hands on the plunder.

11 On that day the number of the killed in Susa Citadel came in before the king, 12 and the king said to Queen Esther “In Susa Citadel the Jews have killed and destroyed five hundred men, and Haman’s ten sons; in the remainder of the king’s provinces what will they have done? And what is it you ask for? it shall be given to you; and what else is the boon you want? it shall be done.”

13 And Esther said “If the king thinks best, let it be granted to the Jews in Susa tomorrow also to do as was the law today; and let them hang Haman’s ten sons up on the stake.” 14 And the king ordered it so done; and it was promulgated as law in Susa, and they hung up Haman’s ten sons, 15 and the Jews in Susa assembled on the fourteenth day of the month of Adar also and killed three hundred men in Susa, but did not lay hands on the plunder.

16** And the remainder of the Jews in the king’s provinces assembled and made a stand for their lives and had rest from their enemies and killed among those who hated them seventy-five thousand, but did not lay hands on the plunder, 17 on the thirteenth day of the month of Adar, and rested on the fourteenth of it and kept it as a day of banqueting and merrymaking. 18 But the Jews in Susa assembled on the thirteenth and fourteenth of it, and rested on the fifteenth of it and kept it as a day of banqueting and merrymaking. 19* That is why the country Jews, those who live in the rural cities, keep the fourteenth day of the month of Adar with merrymaking and banqueting and holiday-making and sending helpings to each other.

20 And Mordocai wrote this matter down and sent writs to all the Jews in all King Xerxes’ provinces, near and far, 21 engaging them to keep the fourteenth day of the month of Adar and the fifteenth of it in each and every year, 22 corresponding to the days on which the Jews came to rest from their enemies and the month which was reversed for them from sorrow to gladness and from mourning to holiday-making, to keep them as days of banqueting and merrymaking and sending helpings to each other and gifts to the needy; 23 and the Jews agreed to what they had begun to do and what Mordocai wrote to them. 24 For Haman the son of Hammedatha the Agagite, the assailant of all the Jews, had schemed against the Jews to destroy them and had cast pur (that is, the lot) for confounding them and destroying them; 25*** but when it came before the king he said, with the book, “Let his evil scheme that he contrived against the Jews come back on his own head, and let them impale him and his sons on the stake.” 26* (That is why they call these days Purim, from the name of the pur.) For these reasons, because of all the words of this letter and what they had seen of such things and what had come to themselves, 27* the Jews engaged and agreed for themselves and their descendants and for all who should join them, permanently, to keep these two days in accordance with the prescription for them and at the time for them in each and every year. And these days are to be commemorated and kept in each and every generation, in each and every clan, in each and every province, and in each and every year; 28 and these Purim days are never to pass away from the midst of the Jews, and their commemoration is never to come to an end out of their descendants.

29 And Queen Esther the daughter of Abihail, and Mordocai the Jew, wrote with all emphasis to enact this second letter of Purim; 30 and he sent writs to a hundred and twenty-seven provinces, Xerxes’ empire, to all the Jews: words of peace and good faith, 31 to enact these Purim days at the times for them, as Mordocai the Jew and Queen Esther had enacted and as they had engaged for themselves and their descendants, the matters of fastings and their crying out. 32 And Esther’s behest ratified these matters of the Purim; and it was put in writing.

10 And King Xerxes laid taxes on all the earth and the islands of the sea. 2 And as to his deeds of might and power, and the details of Mordocai’s greatness which the king bestowed on him, they are recorded in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Media and Persia. 3 For Mordocai the Jew was second to King Xerxes, and a great man of the Jews and popular with the mass of his brothers, aiming at good for his people and speaking peace for all his race.

MARGINAL NOTES TO ESTHER