Esther 2:10

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

Go your ways. Behold, I send you out as lambs among wolves.

If it pleases the king, let it be written that they be destroyed; and I will pay ten thousand talents of silver into the hands of those who are in charge of the king’s business, to bring it into the king’s treasuries.”

My son, keep your father’s commandment, and don’t forsake your mother’s teaching.

Listen to your father who gave you life, and don’t despise your mother when she is old.

For your obedience has become known to all. I rejoice therefore over you. But I desire to have you wise in that which is good, but innocent in that which is evil.

On that day, King Ahasuerus gave the house of Haman, the Jews’ enemy, to Esther the queen. Mordecai came before the king; for Esther had told what he was to her.

My son, listen to your father’s instruction, and don’t forsake your mother’s teaching:

For I know that after my departure, vicious wolves will enter in among you, not sparing the flock.

Yahweh will bring you into Egypt again with ships, by the way of which I told to you that you would never see it again. There you will offer yourselves to your enemies for male and female slaves, and nobody will buy you.

Esther had not yet made known her relatives nor her people, as Mordecai had commanded her; for Esther obeyed Mordecai, like she did when she was brought up by him.

Letters were sent by couriers into all the king’s provinces, to destroy, to kill, and to cause to perish, all Jews, both young and old, little children and women, in one day, even on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month Adar, and to plunder their possessions.

For how can I endure to see the evil that would come to my people? How can I endure to see the destruction of my relatives?”

Brothers, don’t be children in thoughts, yet in malice be babies, but in thoughts be mature.

that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without defect in the middle of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you are seen as lights in the world,

Now the serpent was more subtle than any animal of the field which Yahweh God had made. He said to the woman, “Has God really said, ‘You shall not eat of any tree of the garden’?”

“ ‘Each one of you shall respect his mother and his father. You shall keep my Sabbaths. I am Yahweh your God.

If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and though they chasten him, will not listen to them,

Now when the turn of Esther, the daughter of Abihail the uncle of Mordecai, who had taken her for his daughter, came to go in to the king, she required nothing but what Hegai the king’s eunuch, the keeper of the women, advised. Esther obtained favor in the sight of all those who looked at her.

He sings before men, and says, ‘I have sinned, and perverted that which was right, and it didn’t profit me.

Therefore I consider all of your precepts to be right. I hate every false way.

There is a generation that curses their father, and doesn’t bless their mother.

“The eye that mocks at his father, and scorns obedience to his mother: the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, the young eagles shall eat it.

Then they answered and said before the king, “That Daniel, who is of the children of the captivity of Judah, doesn’t respect you, O king, nor the decree that you have signed, but makes his petition three times a day.”

Who is wise, that he may understand these things? Who is prudent, that he may know them? For the ways of Yahweh are right, and the righteous walk in them; But the rebellious stumble in them.

“Behold, I send you out as sheep among wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.

Don’t be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what is the good, well-pleasing, and perfect will of God.

But I am afraid that somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve in his craftiness, so your minds might be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.

Walk in wisdom toward those who are outside, redeeming the time.

But if any widow has children or grandchildren, let them learn first to show piety toward their own family and to repay their parents, for this is acceptable in the sight of God.

I will scatter you among the nations, and I will draw out the sword after you. Your land will be a desolation, and your cities shall be a waste.

For from the top of the rocks I see him. From the hills I see him. Behold, it is a people that dwells alone, and shall not be listed among the nations.

Yahweh will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where Yahweh will lead you away.

In those letters, the king granted the Jews who were in every city to gather themselves together, and to defend their life, to destroy, to kill, and to cause to perish, all the power of the people and province that would assault them, their little ones and women, and to plunder their possessions,

I was a father to the needy. I researched the cause of him who I didn’t know.

and over them three presidents, of whom Daniel was one; that these local governors might give account to them, and that the king should suffer no loss.

Don’t trust in a neighbor. Don’t put confidence in a friend. With the woman lying in your embrace, be careful of the words of your mouth!

For God commanded, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘He who speaks evil of father or mother, let him be put to death.’

And he went down with them, and came to Nazareth. He was subject to them, and his mother kept all these sayings in her heart.

They said this testing him, that they might have something to accuse him of. But Jesus stooped down and wrote on the ground with his finger.

and advocate customs which it is not lawful for us to accept or to observe, being Romans.”

You fathers, don’t provoke your children to wrath, but nurture them in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

who killed both the Lord Jesus and their own prophets, and drove us out, and don’t please God, and are contrary to all men,

Therefore subject yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake: whether to the king, as supreme;

Yahweh God said to the woman, “What have you done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

So the field of Ephron, which was in Machpelah, which was before Mamre, the field, the cave which was in it, and all the trees that were in the field, that were in all of its borders, were deeded

and that Jacob obeyed his father and his mother, and was gone to Paddan Aram.

Then Jacob was greatly afraid and was distressed. He divided the people who were with him, and the flocks, and the herds, and the camels, into two companies;

and he said, “If Esau comes to the one company, and strikes it, then the company which is left will escape.”

He delivered them into the hands of his servants, every herd by itself, and said to his servants, “Pass over before me, and put a space between herd and herd.”

Israel said to Joseph, “Aren’t your brothers feeding the flock in Shechem? Come, and I will send you to them.” He said to him, “Here I am.”

Put my cup, the silver cup, in the sack’s mouth of the youngest, with his grain money.” He did according to the word that Joseph had spoken.

Now your two sons, who were born to you in the land of Egypt before I came to you into Egypt, are mine; Ephraim and Manasseh, even as Reuben and Simeon, will be mine.

“Benjamin is a ravenous wolf. In the morning he will devour the prey. At evening he will divide the plunder.”

“ ‘If he can’t afford a lamb, then he shall bring his trespass offering for that in which he has sinned, two turtledoves, or two young pigeons, to Yahweh; one for a sin offering, and the other for a burnt offering.

they also resorted to a ruse, and went and made as if they had been ambassadors, and took old sacks on their donkeys, and old, torn-up and bound up wine skins,

Samuel said, “How can I go? If Saul hears it, he will kill me.” Yahweh said, “Take a heifer with you, and say, I have come to sacrifice to Yahweh.

David rose up early in the morning, and left the sheep with a keeper, and took and went, as Jesse had commanded him. He came to the place of the wagons, as the army which was going out to the fight shouted for the battle.

David went out wherever Saul sent him, and behaved himself wisely; and Saul set him over the men of war. It was good in the sight of all the people, and also in the sight of Saul’s servants.

Abigail came to Nabal; and behold, he held a feast in his house, like the feast of a king. Nabal’s heart was merry within him, for he was very drunk. Therefore she told him nothing until the morning light.

David therefore sent out spies, and understood that Saul had certainly come.

“You also came down on Mount Sinai, and spoke with them from heaven, and gave them right ordinances and true laws, good statutes and commandments,

He brought up Hadassah, that is, Esther, his uncle’s daughter; for she had neither father nor mother. The maiden was fair and beautiful; and when her father and mother were dead, Mordecai took her for his own daughter.

Haman said to King Ahasuerus, “There is a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom, and their laws are different from other people’s. They don’t keep the king’s laws. Therefore it is not for the king’s profit to allow them to remain.

He also gave him the copy of the writing of the decree that was given out in Susa to destroy them, to show it to Esther, and to declare it to her, and to urge her to go in to the king, to make supplication to him, and to make request before him, for her people.

For if you remain silent now, then relief and deliverance will come to the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. Who knows if you haven’t come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”

For we are sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be slain, and to perish. But if we had been sold for male and female slaves, I would have held my peace, although the adversary could not have compensated for the king’s loss.”

Esther spoke yet again before the king, and fell down at his feet, and begged him with tears to put away the mischief of Haman the Agagite, and his plan that he had planned against the Jews.

the ten sons of Haman the son of Hammedatha, the Jews’ enemy, but they didn’t lay their hand on the plunder.

Yahweh’s precepts are right, rejoicing the heart. Yahweh’s commandment is pure, enlightening the eyes.

Yahweh, I know that your judgments are righteous, that in faithfulness you have afflicted me.

a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

Yahweh says, “Where is the bill of your mother’s divorce, with which I have put her away? Or to which of my creditors have I sold you? Behold, you were sold for your iniquities, and your mother was put away for your transgressions.

Moreover I will take from them the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones, and the light of the lamp.

“The words of Jonadab the son of Rechab that he commanded his sons, not to drink wine, are performed; and to this day they drink none, for they obey their father’s commandment; but I have spoken to you, rising up early and speaking, and you have not listened to me.

There are certain Jews whom you have appointed over the affairs of the province of Babylon: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. These men, O king, have not respected you. They don’t serve your gods, and don’t worship the golden image which you have set up.”

Then these men said, “We won’t find any occasion against this Daniel, unless we find it against him concerning the law of his God.”

Woe to those who devise iniquity and work evil on their beds! When the morning is light, they practice it, because it is in the power of their hand.

Therefore the law indeed is holy, and the commandment holy, and righteous, and good.

that you receive her in the Lord, in a way worthy of the saints, and that you assist her in whatever matter she may need from you, for she herself also has been a helper of many, and of my own self.

Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the Lord’s work, because you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.

I will be to you a Father. You will be to me sons and daughters,’ says the Lord Almighty.”

For he is our peace, who made both one, and broke down the middle wall of separation,

Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.

You are witnesses with God how holy, righteously, and blamelessly we behaved ourselves toward you who believe.

has at the end of these days spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the worlds.

For he has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, because he who built the house has more honor than the house.

For every house is built by someone; but he who built all things is God.

James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are in the Dispersion: Greetings.

Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the chosen ones who are living as foreigners in the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia,

See how great a love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God! For this cause the world doesn’t know us, because it didn’t know him.