(His closest advisors were: Carshena, Shethar, Admatha, Tarshish, Meres, Marsena, and Memucan, the seven officials of Persia and Media who had direct access to the king and who held the highest rank in the kingdom.)

After this, when the anger of King Ahasuerus had subsided, he remembered Vashti, what she had done, and what had been decreed about her.

He had been taken into captivity from Jerusalem along with the exiles who had been deported with Jeconiah, king of Judah, whom Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon had taken into exile.

Mordecai had raised his cousin Hadassah, or Esther, because she had no father or mother. The young woman had a beautiful figure and was very attractive. After her mother and father died, Mordecai had taken her as his daughter.

Esther did not make known her people or heritage because Mordecai had instructed her not to make it known.

Now Esther was the daughter of Abihail, who had been Mordecai's uncle. Mordecai had taken Esther in as his own daughter. When her turn came to go in to the king, she did not want anything except what Hegai, the king's eunuch in charge of the harem, advised. Esther found favor with everyone who saw her.

The king loved Esther more than any of the other women, so he favored her and was kinder to her than he was to any of the other virgins. He put the royal crown on her head and made her queen in place of Vashti.

Now Esther had not declared her heritage or her people, just as Mordecai had instructed her, for Esther did what Mordecai told her just as she had done when she was raised by him.

After the matter had been fully investigated, Bigthan and Teresh were hanged on a pole, and this was recorded in the Book of the Chronicles in the presence of the king.

All the king's ministers who were in the king's gate would kneel and bow down to Haman, because the king had commanded that Haman be honored in this way. Mordecai, however, would not kneel and would not bow down.

They asked him this day after day, and he would not listen to them, so they told Haman to see whether or not Mordecai would get away with his disobedience, since he also had told them that he was Jewish.

Because they had told him who the people of Mordecai were, Haman found it unacceptable to kill only Mordecai. So Haman sought to destroy all of Mordecai's people, the Jewish people, who were in all the kingdom of Ahasuerus.

When Mordecai learned all that had been done, he tore his garments and clothed himself in sackcloth and ashes. He went into the middle of the city and cried out with a loud and bitter cry.

When Esther's young women and her eunuchs came and told her, the queen was greatly distressed. She sent clothes for Mordecai to put on so he could take off the sackcloth that he had on, but he would not take them.

Then Esther summoned Hathach, one of the king's eunuchs, whom he had assigned to her, and she ordered him to go to Mordecai to find out what was happening and why it was happening.

Mordecai told him everything that had happened and the exact amount of money that Haman had said he would pay into the king's treasury in order to destroy the Jewish people.

Mordecai gave Hathach a copy of the written decree ordering the Jews' destruction that had been issued in Susa. Mordecai wanted him to show it to Esther, to explain it to her, and then to instruct her to go in to the king to seek his favor and plead with him for her people.

Hathach went and told Esther what Mordecai had said.

Then Mordecai left and did everything that Esther had ordered him.

The king responded, "Bring Haman quickly so we may do what Esther has requested." So the king and Haman went to the banquet that Esther had prepared.

Then Haman told them about his splendid wealth, the number of his sons, all the ways the king had honored him, and that he had promoted him above all the other officials and ministers of the king.

Then Zeresh his wife and all his friends said, "Have a pole made 50 cubits high, and then in the morning speak to the king and have Mordecai hanged on it. Then go with the king to the banquet happy." This advice pleased Haman, and he had the pole made.

It was found recorded there that Mordecai had reported about Bigthana and Teresh, two of the king's eunuchs who guarded the entrance to the restricted areas of the palace, and that they had conspired to assassinate King Ahasuerus.

The king said, "Who is in the courtyard?" Now Haman had just entered the outer courtyard of the palace to speak to the king about having Mordecai hanged on the pole he had set up.

let them bring royal robes that the king has worn and a horse on which the king has ridden, with a royal crown placed on its head.

Haman told his wife Zeresh and all his friends everything that had happened to him. His wise friends and his wife Zeresh told him, "If Mordecai, before whom you have begun to fall, is one of the Jewish people, you won't prevail against him. Instead, you will surely fall before him."

While they were still talking to him, the king's eunuchs arrived, and they quickly took him to the banquet that Esther had prepared.

Indeed, I and my people have been sold to be annihilated, killed, and destroyed. If we had just been sold as male and female slaves, I would have kept quiet, because the trouble wouldn't have been sufficient to bother the king."

When the king returned to the banquet hall from the palace garden, Haman was prostrate on the couch where Esther was. The king asked, "Will this man even assault the queen with me in the house?" The king had no sooner spoken than they covered Haman's face.

The king said, "Hang him on it." So they hanged Haman on the pole he had set up for Mordecai, and then the king's anger subsided.

That day King Ahasuerus gave Queen Esther the property of Haman, the enemy of the Jewish people, and Mordecai came into the king's presence because Esther had told him how Mordecai was related to her.

The king took off his signet ring that he had taken from Haman and gave it to Mordecai. Esther then put Mordecai in charge of Haman's property.

In each and every province, and in each and every city, in the places where the king's order and edict reached, there was gladness and joy among the Jewish people, along with a festival and a holiday. Many of the people of the land became Jews, because they had come to fear the Jewish people.

The Jewish people assembled in their towns throughout the provinces of King Ahasuerus to strike out against those who intended to harm them, and no one could oppose them because all the people had come to fear the Jews.

All the provincial officials, the regional authorities, the governors, and those doing the king's work supported the Jewish people because the fear of Mordecai had come over them.

So the Jewish people made a tradition out of what they had begun to do and of what Mordecai had written to them,

since Hammedatha's son Haman, the enemy of the Jewish people, had plotted against the Jewish people to destroy them, and he had cast the (that is, the lot) to determine when to confuse and destroy them.

But when Esther came before the king, he ordered through a letter that the evil plot that Haman had devised against the Jewish people be rescinded, and that he and his sons be hanged on poles.

establishing these days of Purim at the prescribed time, just as Mordecai the Jew and Queen Esther had established, and just as the Jewish people had established for themselves and for their descendants. The letter included instructions for their fasting and lamentations.