1 On that day king, Artaxerxes gave the house of Haman, the adversary of the Jews, to queen Esther, and Mordecai entered before the king. For Esther had confessed to him that he was her paternal uncle.
2 And the king took the ring, which he had ordered to be taken from Haman, and he handed it to Mordecai. And Esther appointed Mordecai over her house.
3 Not content with these things, she threw herself down at the king’s feet and wept, and, speaking to him, pleaded that he would give orders that the malice of Haman the Agagite, and his most wicked schemes, which he had contrived against the Jews, would be made ineffective.
4 But he, as was the custom, extended the golden scepter with his hand, which was the sign of clemency, and she rose up and stood before him.
5 And she said, “If it pleases the king, and if I have found favor in his eyes, and my request is not seen to be disagreeable to him, I beg you that the former letters of Haman, the traitor and enemy of the Jews, by which he instructed them to be destroyed in all the king’s provinces, may be corrected by new letters.
6 And one day of retribution was established throughout all the provinces, namely, the thirteenth of the twelfth month Adar. |
