When the report about the queen goes out to all the women, it will cause them to despise their husbands. They'll say, "King Ahasuerus ordered Queen Vashti to be brought before him, but she wouldn't come.'

If it seems good to the king, let a royal decree go out from him and let it be written in the laws of Persia and Media, which cannot be repealed, that Vashti is never again to enter the presence of King Ahasuerus. Let the king give her royal position to another woman who is better than she.

The young woman pleased him and gained his favor. He quickly provided her beauty treatments and gave her portions of food to her. He also assigned her seven suitable young women from the palace and transferred her and her young women to the best place in the harem.

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.

Sometime later King Ahasuerus promoted Hammedatha the Agagite's son Haman, elevating him to a position above all the other officials who were with him.

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.

When Haman saw that Mordecai would not kneel and bow down to him, he flew into a rage.

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.

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.

Then Esther spoke to Hathach, instructing him to go back to Mordecai with this message:

"Every servant of the king and every person in the king's provinces knows that for any man or woman who goes to the king in the inner court without being summoned there is only one law that he be put to death unless the king holds out the golden scepter to him. Only then he will live. For these last 30 days I've not been summoned to come to the king."

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

Esther replied, "If it pleases the king, let the king and Haman come today to the banquet I've prepared for him."

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.

So the king asked, "What honor and distinction was bestowed on Mordecai for this?" The young men who served the king answered, "Nothing was done for him."

The king's young men told him, "Look, Haman is standing in the courtyard." The king said, "Let him come in."

After Haman came in, the king asked him, "What should be done for the man whom the king desires to honor?"

Then give the robes and the horse to one of the king's most noble officials. Let them put the robes on the man whom the king desires to honor, and let them put him on the horse in the main square of the city. Then let them announce in front of him, "This is what is done for the man whom the king desires to honor.'"

So Haman took the clothes and the horse, dressed Mordecai, and put him on the horse in the main square of the city. He cried out in front of him, "This is what is done for the man whom the king desires to honor."

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.

The king got up from the banquet in anger and went out to the palace garden, while Haman stood there begging Queen Esther to spare his life, because he realized that the king intended to harm him.

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.

Then Esther spoke to the king again and fell at his feet. She wept and pleaded with him for mercy to overturn the evil plan devised by Haman the Agagite and his plot against the Jewish people.

She said, "If it pleases the king, and if I've found favor with him, and if the matter is proper in the king's opinion, and if I'm pleasing to the king, let an order be issued revoking the letters devised by Hammedatha the Agagite's son Haman, which ordered the destruction of the Jewish people throughout the king's provinces.

King Ahasuerus told Queen Esther and Mordecai the Jew, "Look, I've given Haman's property to Esther, and they have hanged him on the pole because he tried to harm the Jewish people.

Now as to all the powerful and great deeds of Ahasuerus, along with an exact statement about the high position of Mordecai to which the king promoted him, these things are written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Media and Persia, are they not?