Esther 10

¹King Ahasuerus laid a tribute on the land and on the islands of the sea. ²Aren’t all the acts of his power and of his might, and the full account of the greatness of Mordecai, to which the king advanced him, written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Media and Persia? ³For Mordecai the Jew was next to King Ahasuerus, and great among the Jews and accepted by the multitude of his brothers, seeking the good of his people and speaking peace to all his descendants. ⁴[Mordecai said, “These things have come from God. ⁵For I remember the dream which I had concerning these matters; for not one detail of them has failed. ⁶There was the little spring which became a river, and there was light, and the sun and much water. The river is Esther, whom the king married and made queen. ⁷The two serpents are Haman and me. ⁸The nations are those which combined to destroy the name of the Jews. ⁹But as for my nation, this is Israel, even those who cried to God and were delivered; for the Lord delivered his people. The Lord rescued us out of all these calamities; and God worked such signs and great wonders as have not been done among the nations. ¹⁰Therefore he ordained two lots. One for the people of God, and one for all the other nations. ¹¹And these two lots came for an appointed season, and for a day of judgment, before God, and for all the nations. ¹²God remembered his people and vindicated his inheritance. ¹³They shall observe these days in the month Adar, on the fourteenth and on the fifteenth day of the month, with an assembly, joy, and gladness before God, throughout the generations forever among his people Israel. ¹⁴In the fourth year of the reign of Ptolemeus and Cleopatra, Dositheus, who said he was a priest and Levite, and Ptolemeus his son brought this letter of Purim, which they said was authentic, and that Lysimachus the son of Ptolemeus, who was in Jerusalem, had interpreted.]