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.