1. Sometime later, King Artaxerxes honored Haman, Hammedatha’s son, a Bougaean, by promoting him above all other political advisors.
2. Everyone at the court would kneel and bow down to Haman because the king had so ordered. But Mordecai didn’t kneel or bow down.
3. So the people at the king’s court said to him, "Mordecai, why don’t you obey the king’s command?"
4. Day after day they tried to speak to him, but he didn’t listen to them. So they let Haman know that Mordecai was disregarding the king’s order. Earlier Mordecai had explained to them that he was a Jew.
5. When Haman himself became aware that Mordecai didn’t kneel or bow down to him, he became very angry.
6. So he planned to wipe out all the Jews throughout the whole kingdom of Artaxerxes.
7. He made a decision in the twelfth year of Artaxerxes’ rule, and he threw lots to determine the day and month on which Mordecai’s people would be destroyed in a single day. The lot fell on the fourteenth day of the twelfth month, that is, the month of Adar.
8. Then Haman said to King Artaxerxes, "A certain group of people exist in pockets among the other peoples throughout your kingdom. Their laws are different from those of everyone else, and they refuse to obey the king’s laws. It is against the king’s interests to put up with them any longer.
9. If the king wishes, perhaps a written order could be sent out that they should be destroyed, and I will contribute ten thousand big sacks of silver to the king’s treasury."
10. The king removed his royal ring from his finger and handed it to Haman to put a seal on the orders he would write against the Jews.
11. The king said to Haman, "Keep the silver. Do as you wish to the people."
12. So in the first month, on the thirteenth day, royal scribes were summoned to write down everything that Haman ordered in the name of King Artaxerxes. The orders were sent out to the governors and rulers in charge of each province, from India to Ethiopia, to one hundred twenty-seven regions in their own language.
13. Fast runners carried the order throughout Artaxerxes’ kingdom. The order commanded people to wipe out all the Jews on a single day of the twelfth month, the month called Adar, and to seize their property.