⁷ King Xerxes replied to Queen Esther and to Mordecai the Jew, “Because Haman attacked the Jews, I have given his estate to Esther, and they have impaled^(A) him on the pole he set up. ⁸ Now write another decree^(B) in the king’s name in behalf of the Jews as seems best to you, and seal^(C) it with the king’s signet ring^(D)—for no document written in the king’s name and sealed with his ring can be revoked.”^(E)

⁹ At once the royal secretaries were summoned—on the twenty-third day of the third month, the month of Sivan. They wrote out all Mordecai’s orders to the Jews, and to the satraps, governors and nobles of the 127 provinces stretching from India to Cush.^[a](F) These orders were written in the script of each province and the language of each people and also to the Jews in their own script and language.^(G)