Esther became the wife of King Ahasuerus and pleaded with him for the lives of her fellow Jews. Also called Hadassah, she was raised as a daughter by her cousin Mordecai after her parents died. The story opens with the king’s feasts at Susa. Queen Vashti held a feast for women. The king called her to display her beauty to his guests, but she refused. His adviser Memucan argued that other wives would follow her example and despise their husbands. Following that advice, the king barred Vashti from his presence and decided to give her position to another woman.
Young women were gathered at Susa to find a new queen, and Esther entered the care of Hegai, the eunuch responsible for them. Mordecai told her not to reveal her people or family, and she obeyed. Hegai favored her, supplied what she needed, gave her seven attendants, and moved her to a good place. The women underwent twelve months of preparation. When Esther’s turn came, she requested only what Hegai advised.
Esther appeared before the king in Tebeth of his seventh year. He loved her more than the other women, crowned her, and made her queen. He held a feast, proclaimed a holiday in the provinces, and gave gifts. Esther still kept her people and family undisclosed. While Mordecai sat at the king’s gate, he learned of Bigthan and Teresh’s plot against the king. He told Esther, who reported it in his name. The inquiry confirmed the plot, the two men were hanged, and the event was recorded in the royal chronicles.
The king promoted Haman the Agagite above the other officials. Servants at the gate bowed to him as ordered, but Mordecai refused. Learning that Mordecai was Jewish, Haman sought to destroy all the Jews in the empire. In Nisan of the king’s twelfth year, lots were cast and the month Adar chosen. Haman claimed that a people with different laws would not obey the king and requested a decree against them. The king gave him his signet ring and permission to act.
On Nisan’s thirteenth day, the scribes wrote at Haman’s command. Issued in the king’s name and sealed with his ring, the decree ordered all Jews, young and old, women and children, killed and their property plundered on Adar’s thirteenth day. Letters went out in the provinces’ scripts and languages. Susa was confused while the king and Haman sat down to drink. Mordecai tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and ashes, and cried aloud. Jews in the provinces fasted and mourned.
Mordecai stopped before the king’s gate because sackcloth could not be worn inside. Esther sent him clothes, but he refused them, so she sent the eunuch Hathach to ask what had happened. Mordecai sent a copy of the decree and urged her to plead for her people. Esther replied that entering the inner court without a summons meant death unless the king held out his golden scepter. She had not been summoned for thirty days.
Mordecai warned that the palace would not spare her. If she stayed silent, he said, deliverance would arise elsewhere for the Jews, but she and her father’s household would perish. He asked whether her royal position might be for this moment. Esther requested that Susa’s Jews fast for her without food or drink for three days and nights. She and her attendants would do the same, then she would go to the king against the law. She declared that she would face death if it came. Mordecai followed her instructions.
On the third day Esther put on royal robes and stood in the inner court. The king held out his golden scepter, and she touched its tip. He asked what she wanted and offered even half his kingdom. Esther invited him and Haman to a banquet that day. When he asked again at the feast, she invited them for the following day, when she would give her request.
Haman left delighted, but seeing Mordecai neither rise nor move made him furious. At home he boasted to his wife Zeresh and friends about his honors while saying Mordecai left him dissatisfied. They advised building a gallows fifty cubits high and asking the king to hang Mordecai on it. Haman had it built.
That night the king could not sleep and ordered the chronicles read. Hearing of Mordecai’s report of the plot, he asked what reward had been given. None had. Haman had arrived in the court, so the king asked him how to honor a favored man. Assuming the king meant him, Haman proposed royal robes, the king’s horse, and a public proclamation through the city. The king ordered him to do this for Mordecai. Haman led Mordecai and proclaimed his honor, then went home mourning before being hurried to the second banquet.
At the second banquet Esther said she and her people had been sold to destruction and asked for their lives. Asked who had planned it, she named Haman as the enemy. The angry king went into the garden while Haman begged her for his life. Returning, the king saw Haman fallen on Esther’s couch and accused him of assaulting her. Harbonah reported the gallows built for Mordecai, and the king ordered Haman hanged on it.
The king gave Haman’s house to Esther. After she explained her relationship to Mordecai, the king gave him the signet ring, and she put him over the house. Esther again fell at the king’s feet, weeping and asking him to stop the first decree. He said a decree in his name and sealed with his ring could not be reversed, but allowed Esther and Mordecai to write another for the Jews.
On Sivan’s twenty-third day, the scribes wrote as Mordecai directed. Letters reached the Jews and officials of all 127 provinces, from India to Ethiopia, in their scripts and languages. The new decree allowed Jews to gather and defend their lives on Adar’s thirteenth day. It also authorized killing the forces who would attack them, their women and children, and plundering their possessions. Jews celebrated wherever the letters arrived. Mordecai appeared in royal clothes and a gold crown, and Susa rejoiced. The account says many local people became Jews because they feared them.
On Adar’s thirteenth day, Jews killed those who sought to harm them. Five hundred men, including Haman’s ten sons, were killed in Susa. Esther requested another day under the decree there and that the sons’ bodies be hanged. The king agreed. Three hundred more were killed in Susa the next day, while Jews in the other provinces killed seventy-five thousand. The account repeatedly states that they did not take the plunder.
Jews in the provinces rested and feasted on Adar’s fourteenth day, while those in Susa rested on the fifteenth. Mordecai wrote that these days should be kept each year with gifts to one another and to the needy. The festival was named Purim after Pur, meaning the lot. Esther and Mordecai wrote again to confirm the appointed days, alongside what had been established about fasting and mourning. Esther’s decree was recorded. The final chapter recounts the king’s tribute and Mordecai’s position next to the king. Mordecai sought the good of his people.