Esther 3:9

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

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.”

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.

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?”

Write also to the Jews, as it pleases you, in the king’s name, and seal it with the king’s ring; for the writing which is written in the king’s name, and sealed with the king’s ring, may not be reversed by any man.”

Now, O king, establish the decree, and sign the writing, that it not be changed, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which doesn’t alter.”

I said to them, “If you think it best, give me my wages; and if not, keep them.” So they weighed for my wages thirty pieces of silver.

To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one; to each according to his own ability. Then he went on his journey.

Then the high priest and the principal men of the Jews informed him against Paul, and they begged him,

the field which Abraham purchased from the children of Heth. Abraham was buried there with Sarah, his wife.

Therefore snares are around you. Sudden fear troubles you,

The nations have sunk down in the pit that they made. In the net which they hid, their own foot is taken.

Then they came near, and spoke before the king concerning the king’s decree: “Haven’t you signed a decree that every man who makes a petition to any god or man within thirty days, except to you, O king, shall be cast into the den of lions?” The king answered, “This thing is true, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which doesn’t alter.”

and they were brought back to Shechem, and laid in the tomb that Abraham bought for a price in silver from the children of Hamor of Shechem.

Samuel said to him, “Yahweh has torn the kingdom of Israel from you today, and has given it to a neighbor of yours who is better than you.

All Israel heard of the judgment which the king had judged; and they feared the king; for they saw that the wisdom of God was in him, to do justice.

“If it pleases the king, let a royal commandment go from him, and let it be written among the laws of the Persians and the Medes, so that it cannot be altered, that Vashti may never again come before King Ahasuerus; and let the king give her royal estate to another who is better than she.

She said, “If it pleases the king, and if I have found favor in his sight, and the thing seem right to the king, and I am pleasing in his eyes, let it be written to reverse the letters devised by Haman, the son of Hammedatha the Agagite, which he wrote to destroy the Jews who are in all the king’s provinces.

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,

For without cause they have hidden their net in a pit for me. Without cause they have dug a pit for my soul.

Let destruction come on him unawares. Let his net that he has hidden catch himself. Let him fall into that destruction.

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.

“My lord, listen to me. What is a piece of land worth four hundred shekels of silver between me and you? Therefore bury your dead.”

Abraham listened to Ephron. Abraham weighed to Ephron the silver which he had named in the hearing of the children of Heth, four hundred shekels of silver, according to the current merchants’ standard.

Midianites who were merchants passed by, and they drew and lifted up Joseph out of the pit, and sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver. The merchants brought Joseph into Egypt.

When we came to the lodging place, we opened our sacks, and behold, each man’s money was in the mouth of his sack, our money in full weight. We have brought it back in our hand.

If her father utterly refuses to give her to him, he shall pay money according to the dowry of virgins.

They shall give this, everyone who passes over to those who are counted, half a shekel according to the shekel of the sanctuary (the shekel is twenty gerahs); half a shekel for an offering to Yahweh.

Stay with me. Don’t be afraid, for he who seeks my life seeks your life. For you will be safe with me.”

When he cut the hair of his head (now it was at every year’s end that he cut it; because it was heavy on him, therefore he cut it); he weighed the hair of his head at two hundred shekels, after the king’s weight.

Yahweh will return his blood on his own head, because he fell on two men more righteous and better than he, and killed them with the sword, and my father David didn’t know it: Abner the son of Ner, captain of the army of Israel, and Amasa the son of Jether, captain of the army of Judah.

As the king passed by, he cried to the king; and he said, “Your servant went out into the middle of the battle; and behold, a man came over, and brought a man to me, and said, ‘Guard this man! If by any means he is missing, then your life shall be for his life, or else you shall pay a talent of silver.’

and they gave for the service of God’s house of gold five thousand talents and ten thousand darics, of silver ten thousand talents, of bronze eighteen thousand talents, and of iron one hundred thousand talents.

and I said, “My God, I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to you, my God; for our iniquities have increased over our head, and our guiltiness has grown up to the heavens.

I said to the king, “If it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor in your sight, that you would send me to Judah, to the city of my fathers’ tombs, that I may build it.”

Yet now our flesh is as the flesh of our brothers, our children as their children. Behold, we bring our sons and our daughters into bondage to be servants, and some of our daughters have been brought into bondage. It is also not in our power to help it, because other men have our fields and our vineyards.”

Esther had not made known her people nor her relatives, because Mordecai had instructed her that she should not make it known.

“All the king’s servants, and the people of the king’s provinces, know, that whoever, whether man or woman, comes to the king into the inner court without being called, there is one law for him, that he be put to death, except those to whom the king might hold out the golden scepter, that he may live. I have not been called to come in to the king these thirty days.”

Haman recounted to Zeresh his wife and all his friends everything that had happened to him. Then his wise men and Zeresh his wife said to him, “If Mordecai, before whom you have begun to fall, is of Jewish descent, you will not prevail against him, but you will surely fall before him.”

Then King Ahasuerus said to Esther the queen, “Who is he, and where is he who dared presume in his heart to do so?”

Esther said, “An adversary and an enemy, even this wicked Haman!” Then Haman was afraid before the king and the queen.

So they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai. Then the king’s wrath was pacified.

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.

For he is cast into a net by his own feet, and he wanders into its mesh.

For my iniquities have gone over my head. As a heavy burden, they are too heavy for me.

For innumerable evils have surrounded me. My iniquities have overtaken me, so that I am not able to look up. They are more than the hairs of my head. My heart has failed me.

The evil deeds of the wicked ensnare him. The cords of his sin hold him firmly.

Thorns and snares are in the path of the wicked: whoever guards his soul stays from them.

An evil man is snared by his sin, but the righteous can sing and be glad.

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

Your heart will meditate on the terror. Where is he who counted? Where is he who weighed? Where is he who counted the towers?

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.

Why do you spend money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which doesn’t satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in richness.

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.

I bought the field that was in Anathoth of Hanamel my uncle’s son, and weighed him the money, even seventeen shekels of silver.

“From on high has he sent fire into my bones, and it prevails against them. He has spread a net for my feet. He has turned me back. He has made me desolate and I faint all day long.

The Lord Yahweh says: “I will spread out my net on you with a company of many peoples; and they will bring you up in my net.

So I bought her for myself for fifteen pieces of silver and a homer and a half of barley.

The seeds rot under their clods. The granaries are laid desolate. The barns are broken down, for the grain has withered.

Therefore whatever you desire for men to do to you, you shall also do to them; for this is the law and the prophets.

When he had begun to reconcile, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents.

Or those eighteen, on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them; do you think that they were worse offenders than all the men who dwell in Jerusalem?

Calling each one of his lord’s debtors to him, he said to the first, ‘How much do you owe to my lord?’

Then he said to another, ‘How much do you owe?’ He said, ‘A hundred cors of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, and write eighty.’

But they were urgent with loud voices, asking that he might be crucified. Their voices and the voices of the chief priests prevailed.

After five days, the high priest, Ananias, came down with certain elders and an orator, one Tertullus. They informed the governor against Paul.

about whom, when I was at Jerusalem, the chief priests and the elders of the Jews informed me, asking for a sentence against him.

that no one should take advantage of and wrong a brother or sister in this matter; because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as also we forewarned you and testified.

Moreover he must have good testimony from those who are outside, to avoid falling into reproach and the snare of the devil.

But those who are determined to be rich fall into a temptation, a snare, and many foolish and harmful lusts, such as drown men in ruin and destruction.

and they may recover themselves out of the devil’s snare, having been taken captive by him to his will.

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 he looked for the city which has the foundations, whose builder and maker is God.

This advice pleased the king and the princes, and the king did according to the word of Memucan:

The God who made the world and all things in it, he, being Lord of heaven and earth, doesn’t dwell in temples made with hands.

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