Esther becomes queen
1Later when the king was not angry anymore, he remembered what Vashti had done and the law that he had made because of her. 2The king's servants said to him: ‘Your_Majesty, we must start looking for some beautiful young girls. 3You must choose people from all the provinces where you are king and tell them to look for beautiful young girls, then they must bring the girls to the city of Susa. The girls must stay in the rooms for your wives and the emasculated official, Hegai, will look after them. Then they must make all the girls beautiful 4and you must choose the girl that you like. She must be queen after Vashti.’ The king said he was happy with this and he did what they said.
5There was a man who came from the land_of_Judah and lived in the city of Susa. His name was Mordecai. He was from the Benjamin tribe and he was the son of Jair, son of Shimei, son of Kish. 6When King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon had caught King Jehoiachin of Judah and taken him away to Babylon, he had also taken Mordecai and his family. 7Mordecai had a cousin and he raised her. Her name was Hadassah and her other name was Esther. She was beautiful and Mordecai adopted her when her parents died and she became his daughter.
8When the officials heard what the king had decided, they got a lot of young girls and took them to the city of Susa. Hegai cared for the girls and Esther was one of them. Hegai was the official who had to see that everything was right in the rooms where the king's wives lived. 9Hegai saw that Esther was beautiful and he liked her. He immediately gave her special food and he chose 7 women servants from the palace to help her look beautiful. He gave them the best rooms to live in.
10Esther did not say that she was a Jew or who her family was. Mordecai had told her not to tell them. 11Every day Mordecai walked past the rooms of the king's wives to find out how Esther was and what they were doing to her. 12They made each girl beautiful for 12 months, 6 months with myrrh and oil and 6 months with spices and perfumes. When it was time for a girl to go to King Ahasuerus, 13she could take anything that she wanted to take with her to the palace from the rooms of the wives of the king. 14The girl had to go into the palace in the evening and when she came back in the morning, she had to go to the other rooms where the concubines of the king lived. Another emasculated official of the king, Shaashgaz, looked after these women. A king's concubine could go to the king again only if he asked her to come.
15Esther was the daughter of Abihail, Mordecai's uncle. Mordecai adopted her and she was like Mordecai's own daughter. When it was time for Esther to go to the king, she did not take anything with her. She took only the clothes that Hegai, the king's emasculated official, told her to take. Everyone who saw Esther loved her. 16Esther went to King Ahasuerus in his palace in the 10th month, the month of Tebeth, in the 7th year after he had become king. 17The king loved Esther more than all the other women. He liked her so much that he put a crown on her head and he made her the queen in place of Queen Vashti. 18The king gave a great feast for all of his officials and officers. It was a feast for Esther. The king said all his people could have a holiday for some time and he gave gifts to everyone.
Mordecai saves the king's life
19When the girls came together again, Mordecai became one of the officials at the palace. 20Esther did not tell anyone who her family was or that she was a Jew, because Mordecai told her not to tell them. Esther had always listened to him from the time when she was very young until now.
21While Mordecai was an official at the palace of the king, 2 other officials were angry with King Ahasuerus and they decided to kill him. They were guards who had to protect the king. 22Mordecai found out what they wanted to do and he went to Queen Esther and told her about it. She went to the king and told him what Mordecai had said to her. 23The king's officials found out that what Mordecai had said was true and they hanged the 2 men on a pole. The king told his officials to write this down in the book of history.
