CHAPTER 1

¹And it happened in the days of Ahasuerus, the Ahasuerus who was king from India to Cush, one hundred and twenty-seven provinces. ²In those days, when Ahasuerus was seated on his royal throne which was in Shushan the capital, ³in the third year of his reign, he made a great banquet in his presence for all his ministers and his servants, the freeholders of Persia and Media, the noblemen and the ministers of the provinces, ⁴when he showed the wealth of his kingdom’s glory and the worth of the splendor of his greatness many days—a hundred and eighty days. ⁵And when these days had gone by, the king made a banquet for all the people who were in Shushan the capital, from the greatest to the least, a seven-day banquet in the garden court of the king’s pavilion—⁶white linen, indigo cotton fastened with cords of fine crimson cloth on silver cylinders and marble columns, gold and silver couches on a paving of alabaster and marble, and mother-of-pearl and black pearl. ⁷And drink was proffered in golden vessels and vessels of various kinds, an abundant royal wine in kingly fashion. ⁸And the drinking was according to royal rule, there was no compulsion, for thus had the king decreed to all the officials in his house, to let every man act according to his will. ⁹Vashti, too, made a banquet in the royal house that was Ahasuerus’s. ¹⁰On the seventh day, when the king was of good cheer through the wine, he said to Mehuman, Bizzetha, Hashbona, Bigetha, Agabtha, Zethan, and Carcas, the seven eunuchs who served in the presence of king Ahasuerus, ¹¹to bring Queen Vashti before the king with the royal crown, to show her beauty to the peoples and the ministers, for she was comely to look at. ¹²And Queen Vashti refused to come according to the word of the king by the eunuchs, and the king was very furious, and his rage flared up within him. ¹³And the king said to the sages, experts in protocol, for thus was the king’s practice before all the experts in rule and law, ¹⁴and those closest to him were Carchena, Shethar, Admantha, Tashish, Meres, Marsena, and Memucan, the seven ministers of Persia and Media—¹⁵according to the rule, what to do with Queen Vashti because she had not obeyed the king’s dictate by the eunuchs. ¹⁶And Memucan said before the king and the ministers: “Not only against the king has Queen Vashti done wrong but against all the ministers and all the peoples that are in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus. ¹⁷For the queen’s act will go out to all the women to hold their husbands in contempt in their eyes, when they will say, ‘King Ahasuerus said to bring Vashti before him and she did not come.’ ¹⁸And this very day, the noblewomen of Persia and Media will say to all the king’s nobles that they heard of the queen’s act, and there will be a full measure of contempt and fury. ¹⁹If it please the king, let the royal decree go out from before him and be written in the rules of Persia and Media, not to the transgressed, that Vashti not come into the presence of King Ahasuerus, and her queenship be given to another better than she. ²⁰And let the king’s edict that he will issue be heard throughout his kingdom, large though it is, and let all wives accord worth to their husbands, from the greatest to the least.” ²¹And the thing was good in the eyes of the king and the ministers, and the king did according to Memucan’s word. ²²And he sent out ministers to all the provinces of the king, to every single province in its own writing and to every single people in its own language, that every man should rule in his home and speak his people’s language.