Esther Pleads Again, and the Jews Are Armed to Defend Themselves

The king gave Esther the house of Haman, the Jews’ enemy, on the same day. That was the first move. Then Mordecai came before the king, because Esther had told the king what Mordecai was to her. The king took off his signet ring, the one he had taken back from Haman, and gave it to Mordecai. Esther set Mordecai over the house of Haman. Property and authority shifted in a single scene, but the old decree still stood.

Esther spoke again before the king. She fell at his feet and wept, and she begged him to put away the mischief that Haman the Agagite had devised against the Jews. She did not assume the king would act on his own. She pressed the matter with her body and with tears. The king held out the golden scepter to her, and she rose and stood before him.

Her request was precise. She asked that the king write to reverse the letters that Haman son of Hammedatha the Agagite had written to destroy the Jews in all the king’s provinces. She framed the plea with four conditions: if it please the king, if she had found favor in his sight, if the thing seemed right before the king, and if she was pleasing in his eyes. Then she gave the reason she could not stay silent: how could she endure to see the evil that would come upon her people? How could she endure to see the destruction of her kindred?

The king answered both Esther and Mordecai. He reminded them that he had given Haman’s house to Esther and that Haman himself had been hanged on the gallows for laying his hand on the Jews. Then he gave a ruling that carried both permission and a limitation. He said, “Write ye also to the Jews, as it pleaseth you, in the king’s name, and seal it with the king’s ring; for the writing which is written in the king’s name, and sealed with the king’s ring, may no man reverse.” The old edict could not be undone. A new edict would have to counter it.

The king’s scribes were called at that time, in the third month, the month Sivan, on the twenty-third day. They wrote according to all that Mordecai commanded. The letters went to the Jews, to the satraps, the governors, and the princes of the hundred and twenty-seven provinces from India to Ethiopia. Every province received the writing in its own script, and every people in its own language. The Jews received it in their own writing and language.

Mordecai wrote in the name of King Ahasuerus and sealed the letters with the king’s ring. He sent them by mounted couriers riding swift steeds bred for the king’s service. The letters granted the Jews in every city the right to gather together and stand for their lives. They were allowed to destroy, slay, and cause to perish all the power of any people or province that would assault them, including the little ones and women, and to take the spoil as plunder.

The appointed day was the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, the month Adar. That was the same day Haman had chosen by lot for the destruction of the Jews. The new decree did not cancel the old one. It authorized the Jews to meet force with force on the same day.

A copy of the writing was published in every province. The decree was made known to all the peoples, and the Jews were told to be ready on that day to avenge themselves on their enemies. The couriers went out, hastened and pressed on by the king’s command. The decree was given out in Shushan the palace.

Mordecai went out from the presence of the king in royal apparel of blue and white, with a great crown of gold and a robe of fine linen and purple. The city of Shushan shouted and was glad. The Jews had light and gladness, joy and honor. In every province and every city where the king’s command and decree came, the Jews held a feast and a good day. Many from among the peoples of the land became Jews, because the fear of the Jews had fallen upon them.