Get up, for this matter concerns you. We are with you, so be strong and act decisively!”

A proclamation was circulated throughout Judah and Jerusalem that all the exiles were to be assembled in Jerusalem.

Should we then in your case hear that you do all this great evil, thereby being unfaithful to our God by marrying foreign wives?”

Now when the young women were being gathered again, Mordecai was sitting at the king’s gate.

When Haman saw that Mordecai was not bowing or paying homage to him, he was filled with rage.

So they hanged Haman on the very gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai. The king’s rage then abated.

For the very thing I dreaded has happened to me, and what I feared has come upon me.

Is not their excess wealth taken away from them? They die, yet without attaining wisdom.

If he is uprooted from his place, then that place will disown him, saying, ‘I have never seen you!’

“Truly, I know that this is so. But how can a human be just before God?

Although I am innocent, I could not answer him; I could only plead with my judge for mercy.

But an empty man will become wise, when a wild donkey’s colt is born a human being.

“Indeed, my eyes have seen all this, my ears have heard and understood it.

How many are my iniquities and sins? Show me my transgression and my sin.

Do you wish to torment a windblown leaf and chase after dry chaff?

But as a mountain falls away and crumbles, and as a rock will be removed from its place,

if he retains it for himself and does not let it go, and holds it fast in his mouth,

‘Surely our enemies are destroyed, and fire consumes their wealth.’

Whatever you decide on a matter, it will be established for you, and light will shine on your ways.

For he fulfills his decree against me, and many such things are his plans.