CHAPTER 3

¹After these things King Ahasuerus elevated Haman son of Hammedatha the Agagite and raised him up and seated him higher than all the ministers who were with him. ²And all the king’s servants who were in the king’s gate would kneel and bow down to Haman, for thus had the king charged concerning him, but Mordecai would not kneel and would not bow down. ³And the king’s servants who were in the king’s gate said to Mordecai, “Why do you flout the king’s command?” ⁴And it happened as they said this to him day after day and he did not heed them, they told it to Haman to see whether Mordecai’s words would stand, for he had told them that he was a Jew. ⁵And Haman saw that Mordecai was not kneeling and not bowing down to him, and Haman brimmed with wrath. ⁶And he scorned to lay hands on Mordecai alone, for they had told him who Mordecai’s people were, and Haman sought to destroy all the Jews, Mordecai’s people, who were in all Ahasu-erus’s kingdom. ⁷In the first month, which is the month of Nissan, in the twelfth year of King Ahasuerus’s reign, he cast a pur, which is a lot, for every day in the month and every month of the twelve, and it fell on the month of Adar. ⁸And Haman said to King Ahasuerus: “There is a certain people, scattered and separate from the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom, and their rules are different from every people’s and they do not observe the king’s rules, and it does not pay for the king to leave them in peace. ⁹If it please the king, let it be written to wipe them out, and ten thousand talents of silver will I measure out to the court overseers to bring into the king’s treasury.” ¹⁰And the king removed his ring from his hand and gave it to Haman son of Hammedatha the Agagite, foe of the Jews. ¹¹And the king said to Haman, “The silver is yours and the people’s, to do with it as is good in your eyes.” ¹²And the king’s scribes were called together in the first month on its thirteenth day, and it was written as all that Haman had charged to the king’s satraps and the governors in every single province according to their mode of writing and to the ministers of every single people and every single province according to their language. In the name of King Ahasuerus was it written, and it was sealed with the king’s ring. ¹³And missives were sent out by the hand of couriers to all the king’s provinces—to destroy, to kill, and to wipe out all the Jews, from young lad to old man, babes and women, on a single day, on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar, and to take their spoils. ¹⁴A copy of the writing to be given as rule in every single province, manifested to all the peoples, to be ready for this day. ¹⁵The couriers went out rushed by the king’s word, and the rule was given out in Shushan the capital. And the king and Haman sat down to drink, and the city of Shushan was confounded.