Wednesday in Season after Pentecost

11Verse 11. Also for you, O Judah, a harvest is appointed, when I restore My people from captivity. 1Verse 1. When I heal Israel, the iniquity of Ephraim will be exposed, as well as the crimes of Samaria. For they practice deceit and thieves break in; bandits raid in the streets. 2Verse 2. But they fail to consider in their hearts that I remember all their evil. Now their deeds are all around them; they are before My face. 3Verse 3. They delight the king with their evil, and the princes with their lies. 4Verse 4. They are all adulterers, like an oven heated by a baker who needs not stoke the fire from the kneading to the rising of the dough. 5Verse 5. The princes are inflamed with wine on the day of our king; so he joins hands with those who mock him. 6Verse 6. For they prepare their heart like an oven while they lie in wait; all night their anger smolders; in the morning it blazes like a flaming fire. 7Verse 7. All of them are hot as an oven, and they devour their rulers. All their kings fall; not one of them calls upon Me. 8Verse 8. Ephraim mixes with the nations; Ephraim is an unturned cake. 9Verse 9. Foreigners consume his strength, but he does not notice. Even his hair is streaked with gray, but he does not know. 10Verse 10. Israel’s arrogance testifies against them, yet they do not return to the LORD their God; despite all this, they do not seek Him. 11Verse 11. So Ephraim has become like a silly, senseless dove — calling out to Egypt, then turning to Assyria. 12Verse 12. As they go, I will spread My net over them; I will bring them down like birds of the air. I will chastise them when I hear them flocking together. 13Verse 13. Woe to them, for they have strayed from Me! Destruction to them, for they have rebelled against Me! Though I would redeem them, they speak lies against Me. 14Verse 14. They do not cry out to Me from their hearts when they wail upon their beds. They slash themselves for grain and new wine, but turn away from Me. 15Verse 15. Although I trained and strengthened their arms, they plot evil against Me. 16Verse 16. They turn, but not to the Most High; they are like a faulty bow. Their leaders will fall by the sword for the cursing of their tongue; for this they will be ridiculed in the land of Egypt.

7Verse 7. In his fury, the king arose from drinking his wine and went to the palace garden, while Haman stayed behind to beg Queen Esther for his life, for he realized that the king was planning a terrible fate for him. 8Verse 8. Just as the king returned from the palace garden to the banquet hall, Haman was falling on the couch where Esther was reclining. The king exclaimed, “Would he actually assault the queen while I am in the palace?” As soon as the words had left the king’s mouth, they covered Haman’s face. 9Verse 9. Then Harbonah, one of the eunuchs attending the king, said: “There is a gallows fifty cubits high at Haman’s house. He had it built for Mordecai, who gave the report that saved the king.” “Hang him on it!” declared the king. 10Verse 10. So they hanged Haman on the gallows he had prepared for Mordecai. Then the fury of the king subsided. 1Verse 1. That same day King Xerxes awarded Queen Esther the estate of Haman, the enemy of the Jews. And Mordecai entered the king’s presence because Esther had revealed his relation to her. 2Verse 2. The king removed the signet ring he had recovered from Haman and presented it to Mordecai. And Esther appointed Mordecai over the estate of Haman. 3Verse 3. And once again, Esther addressed the king. She fell at his feet weeping and begged him to revoke the evil scheme of Haman the Agagite, which he had devised against the Jews. 4Verse 4. The king extended the gold scepter toward Esther, and she arose and stood before the king. 5Verse 5. “If it pleases the king,” she said, “and if I have found favor in his sight, and the matter seems proper to the king, and I am pleasing in his sight, may an order be written to revoke the letters that the scheming Haman son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, wrote to destroy the Jews in all the king’s provinces. 6Verse 6. For how could I bear to see the disaster that would befall my people? How could I bear to see the destruction of my kindred?” 7Verse 7. So King Xerxes said to Esther the Queen and Mordecai the Jew, “Behold, I have given Haman’s estate to Esther, and he was hanged on the gallows because he attacked the Jews. 8Verse 8. Now you may write in the king’s name as you please regarding the Jews, and seal it with the royal signet ring. For a decree that is written in the name of the king and sealed with the royal signet ring cannot be revoked.” 9Verse 9. At once the royal scribes were summoned, and on the twenty-third day of the third month (the month of Sivan ), they recorded all of Mordecai’s orders to the Jews and to the satraps, governors, and princes of the 127 provinces from India to Cush — writing to each province in its own script, to every people in their own language, and to the Jews in their own script and language. 10Verse 10. Mordecai wrote in the name of King Xerxes and sealed it with the royal signet ring. He sent the documents by mounted couriers riding on swift horses bred from the royal mares. 11Verse 11. By these letters the king permitted the Jews in each and every city the right to assemble and defend themselves, to destroy, kill, and annihilate all the forces of any people or province hostile to them, including women and children, and to plunder their possessions. 12Verse 12. The single day appointed throughout all the provinces of King Xerxes was the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, the month of Adar. 13Verse 13. A copy of the text of the edict was to be issued in every province and published to all the people, so that the Jews would be ready on that day to avenge themselves on their enemies. 14Verse 14. The couriers rode out in haste on their royal horses, pressed on by the command of the king. And the edict was also issued in the citadel of Susa. 15Verse 15. Mordecai went out from the presence of the king in royal garments of blue and white, with a large gold crown and a purple robe of fine linen. And the city of Susa shouted and rejoiced. 16Verse 16. For the Jews it was a time of light and gladness, of joy and honor. 17Verse 17. In every province and every city, wherever the king’s edict and decree reached, there was joy and gladness among the Jews, with feasting and celebrating. And many of the people of the land themselves became Jews, because the fear of the Jews had fallen upon them.