1. After these things, when the anger of King Ahasuerus subsided, he remembered Vashti and what she had done and what had been decreed against her.
2. And the king’s servants attending him said, “Let them seek attractive young virgins for the king.
3. Let the king appoint chief officers in all the provinces of his kingdom, and let them gather every attractive young virgin to the harem in the citadel of Susa under the care of Hegai, the king’s eunuch, who is in charge of the women; and let him give them their beauty treatment.
4. And let the young woman who is pleasing in the king’s eyes become queen in place of Vashti. The thing was good in the king’s eyes, and he acted accordingly.
5. There was a Jew in the citadel of Susa whose name was Mordecai son of Jair, son of Shimei, son of Kish, a Benjaminite,
6. who was deported from Jerusalem with the exiles who were deported with Jeconiah the king of Judah, whom King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon had deported.
7. He was raising Hadassah, that is Esther, his uncle’s daughter, for she did not have a father or a mother; the young woman had a beautiful figure and was very attractive. When her father and mother died, Mordecai had taken her as his daughter.