Lexicon :: Strong's G2453 - ioudaios

And when he learned of Mordecai’s ethnic identity, it seemed repugnant to Haman to do away with[fn] Mordecai alone. He planned to destroy all of Mordecai’s people, the Jews, throughout Ahasuerus’s kingdom.

The king removed his signet ring from his hand and gave it to Haman son of Hammedatha the Agagite, the enemy of the Jews.

Letters were sent by couriers to each of the royal provinces telling the officials to destroy, kill, and annihilate all the Jewish people ​— ​young and old, women and children ​— ​and plunder their possessions on a single day, the thirteenth day of Adar, the twelfth month.[fn]

Mordecai told him everything that had happened as well as the exact amount of money Haman had promised to pay the royal treasury for the slaughter of the Jews.

Mordecai told the messenger to reply to Esther, “Don’t think that you will escape the fate of all the Jews because you are in the king’s palace.

“If you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will come to the Jewish people from another place, but you and your father’s family will be destroyed. Who knows, perhaps you have come to your royal position for such a time as this.”

“Go and assemble all the Jews who can be found in Susa and fast for me. Don’t eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my female servants will also fast in the same way. After that, I will go to the king even if it is against the law. If I perish, I perish.”

“Still, none of this satisfies me since I see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the King’s Gate all the time.”

Haman told his wife Zeresh and all his friends everything that had happened. His advisers and his wife Zeresh said to him, “Since Mordecai is Jewish, and you have begun to fall before him, you won’t overcome him, because your downfall is certain.”

She said, “If it pleases the king and I have found favor with him, if the matter seems right to the king and I am pleasing in his eyes, let a royal edict be written. Let it revoke the documents the scheming Haman son of Hammedatha the Agagite wrote to destroy the Jews who are in all the king’s provinces.

King Ahasuerus said to Esther the queen and to Mordecai the Jew, “Look, I have given Haman’s estate to Esther, and he was hanged on the gallows because he attacked[fn] the Jews.

On the twenty-third day of the third month  ​— ​that is, the month Sivan ​— ​the royal scribes were summoned. Everything was written exactly as Mordecai commanded for the Jews, to the satraps, the governors, and the officials of the 127 provinces from India to Cush. The edict was written for each province in its own script, for each ethnic group in its own language, and to the Jews in their own script and language.

A copy of the text, issued as law throughout every province, was distributed to all the peoples so the Jews could be ready to avenge themselves against their enemies on that day.

and the Jews celebrated[fn] with gladness, joy, and honor.

In every province and every city where the king’s command and edict reached, gladness and joy took place among the Jews. There was a celebration and a holiday.[fn] And many of the ethnic groups of the land professed themselves to be Jews because fear of the Jews had overcome them.

All the officials of the provinces, the satraps, the governors, and the royal civil administrators[fn] aided the Jews because they feared Mordecai.

In the fortress of Susa the Jews killed and destroyed five hundred men,

They killed these ten sons of Haman son of Hammedatha, the enemy of the Jews. However, they did not seize[fn] any plunder.

The king said to Queen Esther, “In the fortress of Susa the Jews have killed and destroyed five hundred men, including Haman’s ten sons. What have they done in the rest of the royal provinces? Whatever you ask will be given to you. Whatever you seek will also be done.”

Esther answered, “If it pleases the king, may the Jews who are in Susa also have tomorrow to carry out today’s law, and may the bodies of Haman’s ten sons be hung on the gallows.”

The king gave the orders for this to be done, so a law was announced in Susa, and they hung the bodies of Haman’s ten sons.

The Jews in Susa assembled again on the fourteenth day of the month of Adar and killed three hundred men in Susa, but they did not seize any plunder.

The rest of the Jews in the royal provinces assembled, defended themselves, and gained relief from their enemies. They killed seventy-five thousand[fn] of those who hated them, but they did not seize any plunder.

But the Jews in Susa had assembled on the thirteenth and the fourteenth days of the month. They rested on the fifteenth day of the month, and it became a day of feasting and rejoicing.

This explains why the rural Jews who live in villages observe the fourteenth day of the month of Adar as a time of rejoicing and feasting. It is a holiday when they send gifts to one another.

Mordecai recorded these events and sent letters to all the Jews in all of King Ahasuerus’s provinces, both near and far.

because during those days the Jews gained relief from their enemies. That was the month when their sorrow was turned into rejoicing and their mourning into a holiday. They were to be days of feasting, rejoicing, and of sending gifts to one another and to the poor.

So the Jews agreed to continue the practice they had begun, as Mordecai had written them to do.

But when the matter was brought before the king, he commanded by letter that the evil plan Haman had devised against the Jews return on his own head and that he should be hanged with his sons on the gallows.

the Jews bound themselves, their descendants, and all who joined with them to a commitment that they would not fail to celebrate these two days each and every year according to the written instructions and according to the time appointed.

Queen Esther, daughter of Abihail, along with Mordecai the Jew, wrote this second letter with full authority to confirm the letter about Purim.