9. If it pleases the king, let it be decreed that they be destroyed, and I will pay 10,000 talents of silver into the hands of those who have charge of the king's business, that it may be brought into the king's treasuries.
10. And the king took his signet ring from his hand [with which to seal his letters by the king's authority] and gave it to Haman son of Hammedatha the Agagite, the Jews' enemy.
11. And the king said to Haman, The silver is given to you, the people also, to do with them as it seems good to you.
12. Then the king's secretaries were called in on the thirteenth day of the first month, and all that Haman had commanded was written to the king's chief rulers and to the governors who were over all the provinces and to the princes of each people, to every province in its own script and to each people in their own language; it was written in the name of King Ahasuerus and it was sealed with the king's [signet] ring.
13. And letters were sent by special messengers to all the king's provinces–to destroy, to slay, and to do away with all Jews, both young and old, little children and women, in one day, the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, the month of Adar, and to seize their belongings as spoil.
14. A copy of the writing was to be published and given out as a decree in every province to all the peoples to be ready for that day.
15. The special messengers went out in haste by order of the king, and the decree was given out in Shushan, the capital. And the king and Haman sat down to drink, but the city of Shushan was perplexed [at the strange and alarming decree].