<t /><n id="1" /><p class="bodytext">The following events happened<n id="2" /> in the days of Ahasuerus.<n id="3" /> (I am referring to<n id="4" /> that Ahasuerus who used to rule over a hundred and twenty-seven provinces<n id="5" /> extending all the way from India to Ethiopia.<n id="6" />)

Then Esther was taken to King Ahasuerus at his royal residence in the tenth<n id="1" /> month (that is, the month of Tebeth) in the seventh<n id="2" /> year of his reign.

Letters were sent<n id="1" /> to all the Jews in the hundred and twenty-seven provinces of the empire of Ahasuerus &#8211; words of true peace<n id="2" /> &#8211;

This young woman pleased him,<n id="1" /> and she found favor with him. He quickly provided her with her cosmetics and her rations; he also provided her with the seven specially chosen<n id="2" /> young women who were from the palace. He then transferred her and her young women to the best quarters in the harem.<n id="3" />p>

<p class="bodytext">The king&#8217;s scribes were quickly<n id="1" /> summoned &#8211; in the third month (that is, the month of Sivan), on the twenty-third day.<n id="2" /> They wrote out<n id="3" /> everything that Mordecai instructed to the Jews and to the satraps and the governors and the officials of the provinces all the way from India to Ethiopia<n id="4" /> &#8211; a hundred and twenty-seven provinces in all &#8211; to each province in its own script and to each people in their own language, and to the Jews according to their own script and their own language.