Esther 8:3-11

Then Esther addressed the king again.  She fell at his feet, wept, and begged  him to revoke the evil of Haman the Agagite  and his plot he had devised against the Jews.  The king extended the gold scepter  toward Esther, so she got up and stood before the king. She said, “If it pleases the king and I have found favor with him, if the matter seems right to the king and I am pleasing in his eyes,  let a royal edict be written. Let it revoke the documents the scheming Haman son of Hammedatha the Agagite wrote to destroy the Jews who are in all the king’s provinces.  For how could I bear to see the disaster that would come on my people?  How could I bear to see the destruction of my relatives? ”  King Ahasuerus said to Esther the queen and to Mordecai the Jew, “Look, I have given Haman’s estate to Esther,  and he was hanged on the gallows because he attacked  the Jews.  Write in the king’s name whatever pleases you  concerning the Jews, and seal it with the royal signet ring.  A document written in the king’s name and sealed with the royal signet ring cannot be revoked.”  On the twenty-third day of the third month  #— #that is, the month Sivan #— #the royal scribes were summoned. Everything was written exactly as Mordecai  commanded for the Jews, to the satraps,  the governors, and the officials of the 127 provinces from India to Cush.  The edict was written for each province in its own script, for each ethnic group in its own language,  and to the Jews in their own script and language. Mordecai wrote in King Ahasuerus’s name and sealed the edicts with the royal signet ring. He sent the documents by mounted couriers,  who rode fast horses  bred in the royal stables. The king’s edict gave the Jews in each and every city the right to assemble and defend themselves, to destroy, kill, and annihilate every ethnic and provincial army hostile to them, including women and children, and to take their possessions as spoils of war.

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