On that day they read aloud from the book of Moses so that the people could hear [its words], and in it was found written that no Ammonite or Moabite could ever enter the assembly of God,

because they did not meet the Israelites with bread and water, but hired Balaam against them to curse them. Yet our God turned the curse into a blessing.

When the Jews heard the law, they separated from Israel all who were of foreign descent.

had prepared for Tobiah a large room (chamber) where previously they had put the grain offerings, the frankincense, the utensils, and the tithes of grain, new wine, and [olive] oil which were given by commandment for the Levites, the singers, and gatekeepers, and the contributions for the priests.

Then I gave an order, and they cleaned the rooms; and I put back there the utensils of the house of God with the grain offerings and the frankincense.

I appointed [as treasurers] over the storehouses: Shelemiah the priest, Zadok the scribe, and Pedaiah of the Levites; assisting them was Hanan son of Zaccur, the son of Mattaniah; for they were considered faithful and reliable, and their task was to distribute [supplies] to their brothers (fellow Levites).

In those days I saw some in Judah who were treading wine presses on the Sabbath, and bringing in sheaves or sacks of grain and loading them on donkeys, as well as wine, grapes, figs, and all kinds of loads, which they brought into Jerusalem on the Sabbath day. So I protested and warned them on the day they sold the produce.

But I warned them, saying, “Why do you spend the night by the wall? If you do so again, I will use force against you.” From that time on, they did not come on the Sabbath.

O my God, remember them, because they have defiled the priesthood and the covenant of the priesthood and the Levites.

For the queen’s conduct will become known to all women, causing them to look on their husbands with contempt (disrespect), since they will say, ‘King Ahasuerus commanded Queen Vashti to be brought before him, but she did not come.’

Now it happened when they had spoken to him day after day and he would not listen to them, that they told Haman to see whether Mordecai’s reason [for his behavior] would stand [as valid]; for he had told them that he was a Jew.

But he disdained laying hands on Mordecai alone, for they had told him who the people of Mordecai were (his nationality); so Haman determined to destroy all the Jews, the people of Mordecai, who lived throughout the kingdom of Ahasuerus.

Then Haman said to King Ahasuerus, “There is a certain people scattered [abroad] and dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom; their laws are different from those of all other people, and they do not observe the king’s laws. Therefore it is not in the king’s interest to [tolerate them and] let them stay here.

If it pleases the king, let it be decreed that they be destroyed, and I will pay ten thousand talents of silver into the hands of those who carry out the king’s business, to put into the king’s treasuries.”

So they told Mordecai what Esther had said.

On that night the king could not sleep; so he ordered that the book of records and memorable deeds, the chronicles, be brought, and they were read before the king.

While they were still speaking with him, the king’s eunuchs (attendants) arrived and hurriedly brought Haman to the banquet which Esther had prepared.

So they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai. Then the king’s anger subsided.

Then King Ahasuerus said to Queen Esther and to Mordecai the Jew, “Behold, I have given Esther the house of Haman, and they have hanged him on the gallows because he stretched out his hand against the Jews.

Even all the officials of the provinces and the chief rulers (satraps) and the governors and those who attended to the king’s business supported the Jews [in defeating their enemies], because the fear of Mordecai [and his God’s power] had fallen on them.

So the Jews struck all their enemies with the sword, killing and destroying them; and they did what they pleased to those who hated them.

and [they killed] Parshandatha, Dalphon, Aspatha,

the ten sons of Haman the son of Hammedatha, the Jews’ enemy; but they did not lay their hands on the plunder.

The king said to Queen Esther, “The Jews have killed and destroyed five hundred men and the ten sons of Haman at the citadel in Susa. What then have they done in the rest of the king’s provinces! Now what is your petition? It shall be granted to you. What is your further request? It shall also be done.”

So the king commanded it to be done; the decree was given in Susa, and they hanged [the bodies of] Haman’s ten sons.

The Jews who were in Susa also gathered together on the fourteenth day of the month of Adar and killed three hundred men in Susa, but they did not lay their hands on the plunder.

Now the rest of the Jews who were in the king’s provinces assembled, to defend their lives and rid themselves of their enemies, and kill 75,000 of those who hated them; but they did not lay their hands on the plunder.

This was done on the thirteenth day of the month of Adar, and on the fourteenth day they rested and made it a day of feasting and rejoicing.

But the Jews who were in Susa assembled on the thirteenth and on the fourteenth of the same month, and on the fifteenth day they rested and made it a day of feasting and rejoicing.

because on those days the Jews rid themselves of their enemies, and as the month which was turned for them from grief to joy and from mourning into a holiday; that they should make them days of feasting and rejoicing and sending choice portions of food to one another and gifts to the poor.

So the Jews undertook what they had started to do, and what Mordecai had written to them.

Therefore they called these days Purim after the name Pur (lot). And because of all the instructions in this letter, and what they had faced in this regard and what had happened to them,

the Jews established and made it a custom for themselves and for their descendants and for all who joined them, so that they would not fail to celebrate these two days as it was written and at the appointed time annually.

to establish these days of Purim [to be observed] at their appointed times, just as Mordecai the Jew and Queen Esther had established for them, and as they had established for themselves and for their descendants with instructions regarding their times of fasting and their lamentations (expressions of needing help).

And all the accomplishments of his authority and strength, and the full account of the greatness of Mordecai to which the king had raised him, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Media and Persia?

His sons used to go [in turn] and feast in the house of each one on his day, and they would send word and invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them.

and the Sabeans attacked and swooped down on them and took away the animals. They also killed the servants with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you.”

and suddenly, a great wind came from across the desert, and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell on the young people and they died, and I alone have escaped to tell you.”

Now when Job’s three friends heard of all this adversity that had come upon him, each one came from his own place, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite; for they had made an appointment together to come to sympathize with him and to comfort him.

When they looked from a distance and did not recognize him [because of his disfigurement], they raised their voices and wept; and each one tore his robe [in grief] and they threw dust over their heads toward the sky [in sorrow].

So they sat down on the ground with Job for seven days and seven nights and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his pain was very great.

“There the prisoners rest together;
They do not hear the taskmaster’s voice.

Who rejoice exceedingly,
And rejoice when they find the grave?

“By the breath of God they perish,
And by the blast of His anger they are consumed.

‘Between morning and evening they are broken in pieces and destroyed;
Unobserved and unnoticed, they perish forever.

‘Is not their tent-cord drawn up within them [so that the tent collapses]?
Do they not die, and yet without [acquiring] wisdom?’

“His children are far from safety [and included in their father’s ruin],
They are oppressed and crushed in the [court of justice in the city’s] gate,
And there is no one to rescue them.

“In the daytime they meet in darkness,
And at noon they grope as in the night.

When it is warm, they are silent and cease to flow;
When it is hot, they vanish from their place.

“The paths of their course wind along,
They go up into nothing and perish.
[Your counsel is as helpful to me as a dry streambed in the heat of summer.]

“They were put to shame and disappointed because they had trusted [that they would find water];
They came there and were ashamed.

“It is God who removes the mountains, and they do not know it,
When He overturns them in His anger;

“The earth is given into the hands of the wicked;
He covers the faces of its judges [so that they are blind to justice].
If it is not He, then who is it [that is responsible for all this injustice]?

“Now my days are swifter than a runner;
They vanish, they see no good.

“They pass by like the [swift] boats made of reeds,
Like an eagle that swoops down on its prey.

“But the eyes of the wicked will fail,
And they will not escape [the justice of God];
And their hope is to breathe their last [and die].”

“Now ask the animals, and let them teach you [that God does not deal with His creatures according to their character];
And ask the birds of the air, and let them tell you;

“Behold, He restrains the waters, and they dry up;
Again, He sends the waters out, and they overwhelm and devastate the earth.

“They grope in darkness without light,
And He makes them stagger like a drunken man.”

“His sons achieve honor, and he does not know it;
They become insignificant, and he is not aware of it.

“Distress and anxiety terrify him,
They overpower him like a king ready for battle.

“They conceive mischief and bring forth wickedness,
And their inmost soul prepares deceit and fraud.”

“You have taken a firm hold on me and have shriveled me up,
It has become a witness [against me];
And my leanness [and infirmity] rises up [as evidence] against me,
It testifies to my face [about my guilt].

“They have gaped at me with their mouths,
With contempt they have struck me on the cheek;
They massed themselves together [and conspired] against me.

“But He has made me a byword and mockery among the people,
And I have become one in whose face people spit.

“Those in the west are astonished and appalled at his fate,
And those in the east are seized with horror.

“Even young children despise me;
When I get up, they speak against me.

“Oh, that the words I now speak were written!
Oh, that they were recorded in a scroll!

“That with an iron stylus and [molten] lead
They were engraved in the rock forever!

“They send forth their little ones like a flock,
And their children skip about.

“They lift up their voices and sing to the tambourine and the lyre
And rejoice to the sound of the flute.

“They fully enjoy their days in prosperity,
And so go down to Sheol (the nether world, the place of the dead) in a [peaceful] moment.

“Yet they say to God, ‘Depart from us,
For we do not desire the knowledge of Your ways.

“Are they like straw before the wind,
And like chaff that the storm steals and carries away?

“Together they lie down in the dust,
And the worms cover them.

“That evil men are [now] reserved for the day of disaster and destruction,
They will be led away on the day of [God’s] wrath?

“Is not God in the height of heaven?
And behold the distant stars, how high they are!

“They said to God, ‘Depart from us!
What can the Almighty do for us or to us?’

“When you are cast down and humbled, you will speak with confidence,
And the humble person He will lift up and save.

“Some remove the landmarks;
They [violently] seize and pasture flocks [appropriating land and flocks openly].

“They drive away the donkeys of the orphans;
They take the widow’s ox for a pledge.

“They crowd the needy off the road;
The poor of the land all hide themselves.

“They harvest their fodder in a field [that is not their own],
And glean the vineyard of the wicked.

“They spend the night naked, without clothing,
And have no covering against the cold.

“They are wet from the rain of the mountains
And cling to the rock for lack of shelter.

“They cause the poor to go about naked without clothing,
And they take away the sheaves [of grain] from the hungry.

“Within the walls [of the wicked] the poor make [olive] oil;
They tread [the grapes in] the wine presses, but thirst.

“Others have been with those who rebel against the light;
They do not want to know its ways
Nor stay in its paths.

“In the dark they dig into [the penetrable walls of] houses;
They shut themselves up by day;
They do not know the light [of day].

“For the morning is the same to him as the thick darkness [of midnight];
For he is familiar with the terrors of thick darkness.

“Yet God draws away the mighty by His power;
He rises, but no one has assurance of life.

“God gives them security, and they are supported;
And His eyes are on their ways.

“They are exalted for a little while, and then they are gone;
Moreover, they are brought low and like everything [they are] gathered up and taken out of the way;
Even like the heads of grain they are cut off.

“Surely there is a mine for silver,
And a place where they refine gold.

“He breaks open (mine) shafts far away from where people live,
[In places] forgotten by the [human] foot;
They dangle [in the mines] and hang away from men.

“Man dams up the streams from flowing [so that they do not trickle into the mine],
And what is hidden he brings out to the light.

“After I spoke, they did not speak again,
And my speech dropped upon them [like a refreshing shower].

“They waited for me [and for my words] as for the rain,
And they opened their mouths as for the spring rain.

“I smiled at them when they did not believe,
And they did not diminish the light of my face.

“But now those younger than I mock and laugh at me,
Whose fathers I refused to put with the sheepdogs of my flock.