Esther Chapter 8

Mardochai is advanced: Aman's letters are reversed.

8:1. On that day king Assuerus gave the house of Aman, the Jews' enemy,
to queen Esther, and Mardochai came in before the king. For Esther had
confessed to him that he was her uncle.

8:2. And the king took the ring which he had commanded to be taken again
from Aman, and gave it to Mardochai. And Esther set Mardochai over her
house.

8:3. And not content with these things, she fell down at the king's feet
and wept, and speaking to him besought him, that he would give orders
that the malice of Aman the Agagite, and his most wicked devices which
he had invented against the Jews, should be of no effect.

8:4. But he, as the manner was, held out the golden sceptre with his
hand, which was the sign of clemency: and she arose up and stood before
him,

8:5. And said: If it please the king, and if I have found favour in his
sight, and my request be not disagreeable to him, I beseech thee, that
the former letters of Aman the traitor and enemy of the Jews, by which
he commanded that they should be destroyed in all the king's provinces,
may be reversed by new letters.

8:6. For how can I endure the murdering and slaughter of my people?

8:7. And king Assuerus answered Esther the queen, and Mardochai the Jew:
I have given Aman's house to Esther, and I have commanded him to be
hanged on a gibbet, because he durst lay hands on the Jews.

8:8. Write ye therefore to the Jews, as it pleaseth you in the king's
name, and seal the letters with my ring. For this was the custom, that
no man durst gainsay the letters which were sent in the king's name, and
were sealed with his ring.

8:9. Then the king's scribes and secretaries were called for (now it was
the time of the third month which is called Siban) the three and
twentieth day of the month, and letters were written, as Mardochai had a
mind, to the Jews, and to the governors, and to the deputies, and to the
judges, who were rulers over the hundred and twenty-seven provinces,
from India even to Ethiopia: to province and province, to people and
people, according to their languages and characters, and to the Jews,
according as they could read and hear.

8:10. And these letters which were sent in the king's name, were sealed
with his ring, and sent by posts: who were to run through all the
provinces, to prevent the former letters with new messages.

8:11. And the king gave orders to them, to speak to the