In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away into Assyria, and placed them in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.

And the king of Assyria did carry away Israel unto Assyria, and put them in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes:

And there was found at Ecbatana, in the palace that is in the province of the Medes, a scroll, and in it was a record thus written:

If it please the king, let there go a royal commandment from him, and let it be written among the laws of the Persians and the Medes, that it be not altered, That Vashti come no more before king Ahasuerus; and let the king give her royal estate unto another that is better than she.

Behold, I will stir up the Medes against them, who shall not regard silver; and as for gold, they shall not delight in it.

And all the kings of Zimri, and all the kings of Elam, and all the kings of the Medes,

Make bright the arrows; gather the shields: the LORD has raised up the spirit of the kings of the Medes: for his purpose is against Babylon, to destroy it; because it is the vengeance of the LORD, the vengeance for his temple.

Prepare against her the nations with the kings of the Medes, their captains, and all their rulers, and all the land of their dominion.

PERES; Your kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians.

Now, O king, establish the decree, and sign the writing, that it be not changed, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which alters not.

Then they came near, and spoke before the king concerning the king's decree; have you not signed a decree, that every man that shall ask a petition of any god or man within thirty days, except of you, O king, shall be cast into the den of lions? The king answered and said, The thing is true, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which alters not.

Then these men assembled unto the king, and said unto the king, Know, O king, that the law of the Medes and Persians is, That no decree nor statute which the king establishes may be changed.

In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, of the descendants of the Medes, who was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans;

Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia,