Put the garment and the horse under the charge of one of the king’s most noble officials. Have them clothe the man the king wants to honor, parade him on the horse through the city square, and proclaim before him, ‘This is what is done for the man the king wants to honor.’”

Haman told his wife Zeresh and all his friends everything that had happened. His advisers and his wife Zeresh said to him, “Since Mordecai is Jewish, and you have begun to fall before him, you won’t overcome him, because your downfall is certain.”

Once again, on the second day while drinking wine, the king asked Esther, “Queen Esther, whatever you ask will be given to you. Whatever you seek, even to half the kingdom, will be done.”

King Ahasuerus spoke up and asked Queen Esther, “Who is this, and where is the one who would devise such a scheme?”

Angered by this, the king arose from where they were drinking wine and went to the palace garden. Haman remained to beg Queen Esther for his life because he realized the king was planning something terrible for him.

Just as the king returned from the palace garden to the house of wine drinking, Haman was falling on the couch where Esther was reclining. The king exclaimed, “Would he actually violate the queen while I am in the palace?” As soon as the statement left the king’s mouth, Haman’s face was covered.

Harbona, one of the royal eunuchs, said: “There is a gallows 75 feet tall at Haman’s house that he made for Mordecai, who gave the report that saved the king.”

The king commanded, “Hang him on it.”

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

The king removed his signet ring he had recovered from Haman and gave it to Mordecai, and Esther put him in charge of Haman’s estate.

She said, “If it pleases the king, and I have found approval before him, if the matter seems right to the king and I am pleasing in his sight, 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.

You may 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 ordered 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 from the royal racing mares.

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.

This would take place on a single day throughout all the provinces of King Ahasuerus, on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, the month Adar.

A copy of the text, issued as law throughout every province, was distributed to all the peoples so the Jews could be ready to avenge themselves against their enemies on that day.

The couriers rode out in haste on their royal horses at the king’s urgent command. The law was also issued in the fortress of Susa.

Mordecai went from the king’s presence clothed in royal purple and white, with a great gold crown and a purple robe of fine linen. The city of Susa shouted and rejoiced,

In every province and every city, wherever the king’s command and his law reached, joy and rejoicing took place among the Jews. There was a celebration and a holiday. And many of the ethnic groups of the land professed themselves to be Jews because fear of the Jews had overcome them.

The king’s command and law went into effect on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, the month Adar. On the day when the Jews’ enemies had hoped to overpower them, just the opposite happened. The Jews overpowered those who hated them.

In each of King Ahasuerus’s provinces the Jews assembled in their cities to attack those who intended to harm them. Not a single person could withstand them; terror of them fell on every nationality.

For Mordecai exercised great power in the palace, and his fame spread throughout the provinces as he became more and more powerful.

In the fortress of Susa the Jews killed and destroyed 500 men,

On that day the number of people killed in the fortress of Susa was reported to the king.

The king said to Queen Esther, “In the fortress of Susa the Jews have killed and destroyed 500 men, including Haman’s 10 sons. What have they done in the rest of the royal provinces? Whatever you ask will be given to you. Whatever you seek will also be done.”

Esther answered, “If it pleases the king, may the Jews who are in Susa also have tomorrow to carry out today’s law, and may the bodies of Haman’s 10 sons be hung on the gallows.”

The king gave the orders for this to be done, so a law was announced in Susa, and they hung the bodies of Haman’s 10 sons.

The Jews in Susa assembled again on the fourteenth day of the month of Adar and killed 300 men in Susa, but they did not seize any plunder.

The rest of the Jews in the royal provinces assembled, defended themselves, and got rid of their enemies. They killed 75,000 of those who hated them, but they did not seize any plunder.

They fought on the thirteenth day of the month of Adar and rested on the fourteenth, and it became a day of feasting and rejoicing.

But the Jews in Susa had assembled on the thirteenth and the fourteenth days of the month. They rested on the fifteenth day of the month, and it became a day of feasting and rejoicing.

This explains why the rural Jews who live in villages observe the fourteenth day of the month of Adar as a time of rejoicing and feasting. It is a holiday when they send gifts to one another.

Mordecai recorded these events and sent letters to all the Jews in all of King Ahasuerus’s provinces, both near and far.

because during those days the Jews got rid of their enemies. That was the month when their sorrow was turned into rejoicing and their mourning into a holiday. They were to be days of feasting, rejoicing, and of sending gifts to one another and the poor.

But when the matter was brought before the king, he commanded by letter that the evil plan Haman had devised against the Jews return on his own head and that he should be hanged with his sons on the gallows.

For this reason these days are called Purim, from the word Pur.

Because of all the instructions in this letter as well as what they had witnessed and what had happened to them,

These days are remembered and celebrated by every generation, family, province, and city, so that these days of Purim will not lose their significance in Jewish life and their memory will not fade from their descendants.

He sent letters with messages of peace and faithfulness to all the Jews who were in the 127 provinces of the kingdom of Ahasuerus,

in order to confirm these days of Purim at their proper time just as Mordecai the Jew and Queen Esther had established them and just as they had committed themselves and their descendants to the practices of fasting and lamentation.

All of his powerful and magnificent accomplishments and the detailed account of Mordecai’s great rank to which the king had honored him, have they not been written in the Historical Records of the Kings of Media and Persia?

There was a man in the country of Uz named Job. He was a man of perfect integrity, who feared God and turned away from evil.

His sons used to take turns having banquets at their homes. They would send an invitation to their three sisters to eat and drink with them.

Whenever a round of banqueting was over, Job would send for his children and purify them, rising early in the morning to offer burnt offerings for all of them. For Job thought: Perhaps my children have sinned, having cursed God in their hearts. This was Job’s regular practice.

One day the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them.

The Lord asked Satan, “Where have you come from?”

“From roaming through the earth,” Satan answered Him, “and walking around on it.”

Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job? No one else on earth is like him, a man of perfect integrity, who fears God and turns away from evil.”

Haven’t You placed a hedge around him, his household, and everything he owns? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land.

“Very well,” the Lord told Satan, “everything he owns is in your power. However, you must not lay a hand on Job himself.” So Satan left the Lord’s presence.

One day when Job’s sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother’s house,

He was still speaking when another messenger came and reported: “A lightning storm struck from heaven. It burned up the sheep and the servants and devoured them, and I alone have escaped to tell you!”

That messenger was still speaking when yet another came and reported: “The Chaldeans formed three bands, made a raid on the camels, and took them away. They struck down the servants with the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you!”

He was still speaking when another messenger came and reported: “Your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother’s house.

Suddenly a powerful wind swept in from the desert and struck the four corners of the house. It collapsed on the young people so that they died, and I alone have escaped to tell you!”

One day the sons of God came again to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them to present himself before the Lord.

The Lord asked Satan, “Where have you come from?”

“From roaming through the earth,” Satan answered Him, “and walking around on it.”

Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job? No one else on earth is like him, a man of perfect integrity, who fears God and turns away from evil. He still retains his integrity, even though you incited Me against him, to destroy him without just cause.”

“Skin for skin!” Satan answered the Lord. “A man will give up everything he owns in exchange for his life.

“Very well,” the Lord told Satan, “he is in your power; only spare his life.”

“You speak as a foolish woman speaks,” he told her. “Should we accept only good from God and not adversity?” Throughout all this Job did not sin in what he said.

Now when Job’s three friends—Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite—heard about all this adversity that had happened to him, each of them came from his home. They met together to go and sympathize with him and comfort him.

When they looked from a distance, they could barely recognize him. They wept aloud, and each man tore his robe and threw dust into the air and on his head.

Then they sat on the ground with him seven days and nights, but no one spoke a word to him because they saw that his suffering was very intense.

May the day I was born perish,
and the night when they said,
“A boy is conceived.”

If only that day had turned to darkness!
May God above not care about it,
or light shine on it.

May darkness and gloom reclaim it,
and a cloud settle over it.
May an eclipse of the sun terrify it.

If only darkness had taken that night away!
May it not appear among the days of the year
or be listed in the calendar.

Yes, may that night be barren;
may no joyful shout be heard in it.

Let those who curse certain days
cast a spell on it,
those who are skilled in rousing Leviathan.

Now I would certainly be lying down in peace;
I would be asleep.
Then I would be at rest

Why is light given to one burdened with grief,
and life to those whose existence is bitter,

who are filled with much joy
and are glad when they reach the grave?

Why is life given to a man whose path is hidden,
whom God has hedged in?

I sigh when food is put before me,
and my groans pour out like water.

Should anyone try to speak with you
when you are exhausted?
Yet who can keep from speaking?

Your words have steadied the one who was stumbling
and braced the knees that were buckling.

Consider: who has perished when he was innocent?
Where have the honest been destroyed?

In my experience, those who plow injustice
and those who sow trouble reap the same.

They perish at a single blast from God
and come to an end by the breath of His nostrils.

A word was brought to me in secret;
my ears caught a whisper of it.

Among unsettling thoughts from visions in the night,
when deep sleep descends on men,

If God puts no trust in His servants
and He charges His angels with foolishness,

how much more those who dwell in clay houses,
whose foundation is in the dust,
who are crushed like a moth!

They are smashed to pieces from dawn to dusk;
they perish forever while no one notices.

I have seen a fool taking root,
but I immediately pronounced a curse on his home.

His children are far from safety.
They are crushed at the city gate,
with no one to rescue them.

He sets the lowly on high,
and mourners are lifted to safety.

He traps the wise in their craftiness
so that the plans of the deceptive
are quickly brought to an end.

He will rescue you from six calamities;
no harm will touch you in seven.

In famine He will redeem you from death,
and in battle, from the power of the sword.

You will be safe from slander
and not fear destruction when it comes.

You will know that your tent is secure,
and nothing will be missing when you inspect your home.

You will approach the grave in full vigor,
as a stack of sheaves is gathered in its season.

If only my grief could be weighed
and my devastation placed with it in the scales.

Does a wild donkey bray over fresh grass
or an ox low over its fodder?

Is bland food eaten without salt?
Is there flavor in an egg white?

It would still bring me comfort,
and I would leap for joy in unrelenting pain
that I have not denied the words of the Holy One.

The wadis evaporate in warm weather;
they disappear from their channels in hot weather.

They are ashamed because they had been confident of finding water.
When they arrive there, they are frustrated.