1. After a while, King Xerxes got over being angry. But he kept thinking about what Vashti had done and the law that he had written because of her.
2. Then the king's personal servants said:Your Majesty, a search must be made to find you some beautiful young women.
3. You can select officers in every province to bring them to the place where you keep your wives in the capital city of Susa. Put your servant Hegai in charge of them since that is his job. He can see to it that they are given the proper beauty treatments.
4. Then let the young woman who pleases you most take Vashti's place as queen.King Xerxes liked these suggestions, and he followed them.
5. At this time a Jew named Mordecai was living in Susa. His father was Jair, and his grandfather Shimei was the son of Kish from the tribe of Benjamin.
6. Kish was one of the people whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken from Jerusalem, when he took King Jeconiah of Judah to Babylonia.
7. Mordecai had a very beautiful cousin named Esther, whose Hebrew name was Hadassah. He had raised her as his own daughter, after her father and mother died.
8. When the king ordered the search for beautiful women, many were taken to the king's palace in Susa, and Esther was one of them.Hegai was put in charge of all the women,
9. and from the first day, Esther was his favourite. He began her beauty treatments at once. He also gave her plenty of food and seven special maids from the king's palace, and they had the best rooms.
10. Mordecai had warned Esther not to tell anyone that she was a Jew, and she obeyed him.
11. He was anxious to see how Esther was getting on and to learn what had happened to her. So each day he would walk back and forth in front of the court where the women lived.