<p class="bodytext">In the first month (that is, the month of Nisan), in the twelfth year<n id="1" /> of King Ahasuerus&#8217; reign, <i>puri><n id="2" /> (that is, the lot) was cast before Haman in order to determine a day and a month.<n id="3" /> It turned out to be the twelfth month (that is, the month of Adar).<n id="4" />p>

<t /><p class="bodytext">In the twelfth month (that is, the month of Adar), on its thirteenth day, the edict of the king and his law were to be executed. It was on this day that the enemies of the Jews had supposed that they would gain power over them. But contrary to expectations, the Jews gained power over their enemies.

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.

This was to take place on a certain day throughout all the provinces of King Ahasuerus &#8211; namely, on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month (that is, the month of Adar).

<p class="bodytext">At the end of the twelve months that were required for the women,<n id="1" /> when the turn of each young woman arrived to go to King Ahasuerus &#8211; for in this way they had to fulfill their time of cosmetic treatment: six months with oil of myrrh, and six months with perfume and various ointments used by women &#8211;

Letters were sent by the runners to all the king&#8217;s provinces stating that<n id="1" /> they should destroy, kill, and annihilate all the Jews, from youth to elderly, both women and children,<n id="2" /> on a particular day, namely the thirteenth day<n id="3" /> of the twelfth month (that is, the month of Adar), and to loot and plunder their possessions.

<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.