Jeroboam appointed his own priests to serve at the worship centers and to lead in the worship of the goat idols and calf idols he had made.

So Mordecai set out to do everything that Esther had instructed him.

Why is light given to a man whose way is hidden, and whom God has hedged in?

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

Even as I have seen, those who plow iniquity and those who sow trouble reap the same.

He who removes mountains suddenly, who overturns them in his anger;

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

I should have been as though I had never existed; I should have been carried right from the womb to the grave!

Will you keep to the old path that evil men have walked –

men who were carried off before their time, when the flood was poured out on their foundations?

just as I was in my most productive time, when God’s intimate friendship was experienced in my tent,

Remember to extol his work, which people have praised in song.

which the clouds pour down and shower on humankind abundantly.

which I reserve for the time of trouble, for the day of war and battle?

And its young ones devour the blood, and where the dead carcasses are, there it is.”

As for God’s chosen people who are in the land, and the leading officials I admired so much –

May we experience your faithfulness, O Lord, for we wait for you.

Violent men perjure themselves, and falsely accuse me.

which my lips uttered and my mouth spoke when I was in trouble.

God deserves praise, for he did not reject my prayer or abandon his love for me!