Esther 3-4

Contemporary English Version

Haman Plans To Destroy the Jews

3 Later, King Xerxes promoted Haman the son of Hammedatha to the highest position in his kingdom. Haman was a descendant of Agag,^[a] ²and the king had given orders for his officials at the royal gate to honor Haman by kneeling down to him. All of them obeyed except Mordecai. ³When the other officials asked Mordecai why he disobeyed the king's command, ⁴he said, “Because I am a Jew.” They spoke to him for several days about kneeling down, but he still refused to obey. Finally, they reported this to Haman, to find out if he would let Mordecai get away with it.

⁵Haman was furious to learn that Mordecai refused to kneel down and honor him. ⁶And when he found out that Mordecai was a Jew, he knew that killing only Mordecai was not enough. Every Jew in the whole kingdom had to be killed.

⁷It was now the twelfth year of the rule of King Xerxes. During Nisan,^[b] the first month of the year, Haman said, “Find out the best time for me to do this.”^[c] The time chosen was Adar,^[d] the twelfth month.

⁸^(A) Then Haman went to the king and said:

Your Majesty, there are some people who live all over your kingdom and won't have a thing to do with anyone else. They have customs that are different from everyone else's, and they refuse to obey your laws. We would be better off to get rid of them! ⁹Why not give orders for all of them to be killed? I can promise that you will get tons of silver for your treasury.

¹⁰The king handed his official ring to Haman, who hated the Jews, and the king told him, ¹¹“Do what you want with those people! You can keep their money.”

¹²On the thirteenth day of Nisan, Haman called in the king's secretaries and ordered them to write letters in every language used in the kingdom. The letters were written in the name of the king and sealed by using the king's own ring.^[e] At once they were sent to the king's highest officials, the governors of each province, and the leaders of the different nations in the kingdom of Xerxes.

¹³The letters were taken by messengers to every part of the kingdom, and this is what was said in the letters:

On the thirteenth day of Adar, the twelfth month, all Jewish men, women, and children are to be killed. And their property is to be taken.

^14-15King Xerxes gave orders for these letters to be posted where they could be seen by everyone all over the kingdom. The king's command was obeyed, and one of the letters was read aloud to the people in the walled city of Susa. Then the king and Haman sat down to drink together, but no one in the city^[f] could figure out what was going on.

Mordecai Asks for Esther's Help

4 When Mordecai heard about the letter, he tore his clothes in sorrow and put on sackcloth. Then he covered his head with ashes and went through the city, crying and weeping. ²But he could go only as far as the palace gate, because no one wearing sackcloth was allowed inside the palace. ³^(B) In every province where the king's orders were read, the Jews cried and mourned, and they went without eating.^[g] Many of them even put on sackcloth and sat in ashes.

⁴When Esther's servant girls and her other servants told her what Mordecai was doing, she became very upset and sent Mordecai some clothes to wear in place of the sackcloth. But he refused to take them.

⁵Esther had a servant named Hathach, who had been given to her by the king. So she called him in and said, “Find out what's wrong with Mordecai and why he's acting this way.”

⁶Hathach went to Mordecai in the city square in front of the palace gate, ⁷and Mordecai told him everything that had happened. He also told him how much money Haman had promised to add to the king's treasury, if all the Jews were killed.

⁸Mordecai gave Hathach a copy of the orders for the murder of the Jews and told him that these had been read in Susa. He said, “Show this to Esther and explain what it means. Ask her to go to the king and beg him to have pity on her people, the Jews!”

⁹Hathach went back to Esther and told her what Mordecai had said. ¹⁰She answered, “Tell Mordecai ¹¹there is a law about going in to see the king, and all his officials and his people know about this law. Anyone who goes in to see the king without being invited by him will be put to death. The only way that anyone can be saved is for the king to hold out the gold scepter to that person. And it's been thirty days since he has asked for me.”

¹²When Mordecai was told what Esther had said, ¹³he sent back this reply, “Don't think that you will escape being killed with the rest of the Jews, just because you live in the king's palace. ¹⁴If you don't speak up now, we will somehow get help, but you and your family will be killed. It could be that you were made queen for a time like this!”

¹⁵Esther sent a message to Mordecai, saying, ¹⁶“Bring together all the Jews in Susa and tell them to go without eating for my sake! Don't eat or drink for three days and nights. My servant girls and I will do the same. Then I will go in to see the king, even if it means I must die.”

¹⁷Mordecai did everything Esther told him to do.

Footnotes

3.1 Agag: Agag was a king who had fought against the Jews long before the time of Esther (see 1 Samuel 15.1-33).
3.7 Nisan: The first month of the Hebrew calendar, from about mid-March to mid-April.
3.7 Find out … do this: The Hebrew text has “cast lots,” which were pieces of wood or stone used to find out how and when to do something. For “lots” the Hebrew text uses the Babylonian word “purim.”
3.7 Adar: The twelfth month of the Hebrew calendar, from about mid-February to mid-March.
3.12 king's own ring: Melted wax was used to seal a letter, and while the wax was still soft, the king's ring was pressed in the wax to show that the letter was official.
3.14,15 walled city … city: Or “royal fortress … rest of the city.”
4.3 went without eating: The Israelites would sometimes go without eating (also called “fasting”) in times of great sorrow or danger.