Royal Favor Shown the Jews
1On that very day King Artaxerxes granted to Esther all the property of the adversary Haman. Mordecai was summoned by the king, for Esther had told the kinga that he was related to her.* 2The king took his ring, which he had taken back from Haman, and gave it to Mordecai, and Esther set Mordecai over everything that had been Haman’s.*
3Then she spoke once again to the king, and, falling at his feet, she asked him to avert all the evil that Haman had planned against the Jews.* 4The king extended his golden scepter to Esther, and she rose and stood before the king.* 5Esther said, “If it pleases you, and if I have found favor, let an order be sent rescinding the letters that Haman wrote and sent to destroy the Jews in your kingdom.* 6How can I look on the ruin of my people? How can I be safe if my ancestral nationb is destroyed?”* 7The king said to Esther, “Now that Ic have granted all of Haman’s property to you and have hung him on a pole because he laid hands on the Jews, what else do you request?* 8Write in my name what you think best and seal it with my ring, for whatever is written at the king’s command and sealed with my ring cannot be contravened.”*
9The secretaries were summoned on the twenty-third day of the first month, that is, Nisan, in the same year, and all that she commanded with respect to the Jews was given in writing to the administrators and governors of the satrapies from India to Ethiopia, one hundred twenty-seven satrapies, to each province in its own language.* 10The edict was writtend with the king’s authority and sealed with his ring, and they sent out the letters by couriers.* 11He ordered the Jewse in every city to observe their laws, to defend themselves, and to act as they wished against their opponents and enemies* 12on a single day, the thirteenth of the twelfth month, which is Adar, throughout all the kingdom of Artaxerxes.*