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King Xerxes replied to Queen Esther and to Mordecai, ‘You are right! I have already punished Haman with death because he wanted to destroy the Jews. I have also given all of his things to Esther. Now you must use my authority to write another law. Write a law that you think will save your people. Then mark the letters with my special ring. Any letter that has my name and the mark of my ring on it has the king's authority. Nobody can ever change it.’

They called the king's secretaries to come and write the new law. They did that on the 23rd day of the third month (Sivan). Mordecai told them what to write. They sent the letters to the Jews, the rulers and the officers in all the regions of the kingdom. There were 127 regions, from India as far as Ethiopia. They wrote the letters in the languages that people spoke in each region. They also wrote to the Jews in their own language. Everyone would know what the new law said.

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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. 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)

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)

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Footnotes

  1. Esther 8:9 That is, the upper Nile region