Esther

¹The king levied a tax upon his kingdom both by land and sea. ²As for his strength and valour, and the wealth and glory of his kingdom, behold, they are written in the book of the Persians and Medes for a memorial. ³Mordecai was viceroy to King Ahasuerus, and was a great man in the kingdom, honored by the Jews, and lived his life loved by all his nation. ⁴[Mordecai said, “These things have come from God. ⁵For I remember the dream which I had concerning these matters; for not one detail of them has failed. ⁶There was the little spring which became a river, and there was light, and the sun and much water. The river is Esther, whom the king married and made queen. ⁷The two serpents are Haman and me. ⁸The nations are those which combined to destroy the name of the Jews. ⁹But as for my nation, this is Israel, even those who cried to God and were delivered; for the Lord delivered his people. The Lord rescued us out of all these calamities; and God worked such signs and great wonders as have not been done among the nations. ¹⁰Therefore he ordained two lots. One for the people of God, and one for all the other nations. ¹¹And these two lots came for an appointed season, and for a day of judgment, before God, and for all the nations. ¹²God remembered his people and vindicated his inheritance.

¹³They shall observe these days in the month Adar, on the fourteenth and on the fifteenth day of the month, with an assembly, joy, and gladness before God, throughout the generations forever among his people Israel. ¹⁴In the fourth year of the reign of Ptolemeus and Cleopatra, Dositheus, who said he was a priest and Levite, and Ptolemeus his son brought this letter of Purim, which they said was authentic, and that Lysimachus the son of Ptolemeus, who was in Jerusalem, had interpreted.]