Good News [1976], GOOD NEWS BIBLE WITH DEUTEROCANONICALS / APOCRYPHA Today's English Version (AMERICAN BIBLE SOCIETY, New York) [word count] [B15000].
To look up a word in a dictionary, select the word with your mouse and press 'd' on your keyboard.
Haman Plots to Destroy the Jews
1 Some time later King Xerxes
honored a man named Haman
son of Hammedatha, a Bougaean, by
promoting him to the position of
prime minister.
2 The king ordered
all the officials in his service to show
their respect for Haman by bowing
to him. They all did so, except Mordecai,
who refused to bow to Haman.
3 The other officials in the royal
service asked him why he was disobeying
the king's command.
4 Day
after day they urged him to give in,
but he would not listen to them. “I
am a Jew,” he explained, “and I cannot
bow to Haman.” So they told
Haman how Mordecai was defying
the king's orders.
5 Haman was furious
when he realized that Mordecai
was not going to bow to him,
6 and
so he made plans to kill every Jew in
the whole Persian Empire.
7 In the twelfth year of King Xerxes'
reign, Haman ordered the lots
to be cast to find out the right day
and month to destroy the Jews, all in
a single day. The fourteenth day of
the month of Adar was the date chosen.
8 So Haman told the king, “There
is a certain race of people scattered
among the nations all over your empire.
They observe customs that are
not like those of any other people.
Moreover, they do not obey the laws
of the empire, so it is not in your
best interests to tolerate them.
9 If it
please Your Majesty, issue a decree
that they are to be put to death. If
you do this, I promise to put 375
tons of silver into the royal treasury.”
10 The king took off his ring, which
was used to stamp official proclamations,
and gave it to Haman to seal
the decree that was to be written
against the Jews.
11 The king told
-- --
him, “Keep the money, and do whatever
you want with that race of people.”
12 So on the thirteenth day of the
first month, Haman called the king's
secretaries and dictated a proclamation
to be translated into every language
in the empire and to be sent to
all the rulers and governors. It was
issued in the name of King Xerxes
and sent to all the 127 provinces,
which stretched from India to Sudan.
13 Runners took this proclamation
to every province of the empire.
It contained the instructions that on
a single day in the twelfth month,
the month of Adar, all Jews were to
be killed and their belongings confiscated. note
Good News [1976], GOOD NEWS BIBLE WITH DEUTEROCANONICALS / APOCRYPHA Today's English Version (AMERICAN BIBLE SOCIETY, New York) [word count] [B15000].
|