Mordecai Refuses to Do Obeisance

1After these events King Artaxerxes promoted Haman son of Hammedatha, a Bougean, advancing him and granting him precedence over all the king's3.1 Gk all his Friends. 2So all who were at court used to do obeisance to Haman,3.2 Gk him for so the king had commanded to be done. Mordecai, however, did not do obeisance. 3Then the king's courtiers said to Mordecai, ‘Mordecai, why do you disobey the king's command?’ 4Day after day they spoke to him, but he would not listen to them. Then they informed Haman that Mordecai was resisting the king's command. Mordecai had told them that he was a Jew. 5So when Haman learned that Mordecai was not doing obeisance to him, he became furiously angry, 6and plotted to destroy all the Jews under Artaxerxes' rule.

7In the twelfth year of King Artaxerxes Haman3.7 Gk he came to a decision by casting lots, taking the days and the months one by one, to fix on one day to destroy the whole race of Mordecai. The lot fell on the fourteenth3.7 Other ancient witnesses read thirteenth; see 8.12 day of the month of Adar.

Decree against the Jews

8Then Haman3.8 Gk he said to King Artaxerxes, ‘There is a certain nation scattered among the other nations in all your kingdom; their laws are different from those of every other nation, and they do not keep the laws of the king. It is not expedient for the king to tolerate them. 9If it pleases the king, let it be decreed that they are to be destroyed, and I will pay ten thousand talents of silver into the king's treasury.’ 10So the king took off his signet ring and gave it to Haman to seal the decree3.10 Gk lacks the decree that was to be written against the Jews. 11The king told Haman, ‘Keep the money, and do whatever you want with that nation.’

12So on the thirteenth day of the first month the king's secretaries were summoned, and in accordance with Haman's instructions they wrote in the name of King Artaxerxes to the magistrates and the governors in every province from India to Ethiopia. There were one hundred and twenty-seven provinces in all, and the governors were addressed each in his own language. 13Instructions were sent by couriers throughout all the empire of Artaxerxes to destroy the Jewish people on a given day of the twelfth month, which is Adar, and to plunder their goods.