3
Haman tried to hurt the Jewish people
1 Later on, King Zerk-sees (Xerxes) was very happy with a man named Haman. Haman's father was Ham-me-datha from the Aga-gite tribe.*
The king made Haman more important than any other man in the government. 2 And so, King Zerk-sees made a law that said all the king's workers at the palace gates had to bow down to Haman. They had to get down on their knees to show him deep respect. All the king's workers did this, but More-dek-eye (Mordecai) would not follow that new law. He would not get down on his knees to show respect to Haman.
3 The king's workers at the palace gates said to More-dek-eye, “Why don't you follow the king's law and show respect to Haman?”
4 More-dek-eye answered, “I am a Jew, and that is why I cannot bow down and show deep respect to Haman.”
The king's workers kept on asking him every day to follow the king's law, but he would not listen to them. And so they told Haman. They wanted to find out what Haman would do to More-dek-eye.
5 When the king's workers told Haman that More-dek-eye would not bow down to show him deep respect, Haman got really angry. 6 He was so wild, he wanted to kill More-dek-eye. And when someone told him that More-dek-eye was a Jew, Haman made up his mind to do more than just kill More-dek-eye. He wanted to kill all the Jews that lived in King Zerk-sees' country.
7 But Haman wanted to know the best time to kill all the Jews. In the Persian culture, there was a ceremony called Pur. In that ceremony, someone would drop special stones onto the ground. Then they would look at the stones and tell everyone the best day of the year to do whatever they were planning to do.
So someone did that ceremony for Haman and said that the best time to kill all the Jews was in the last month of that 12th year. The Pur ceremony for Haman was done in the first month of the 12th year after Zerk-sees started to be the king of Persia.
8 Someone told Haman that news and so he went to talk to King Zerk-sees. Haman said, “I have found out that there is a group of people from a different nation living in every part of your country. They keep their own culture and so they do not fit in with everyone else. They have their own laws and that is why they will not follow your laws. I think you should get rid of them. 9 And if you think that is a good idea, why don't you make a law so that all those people can be killed. If all those people are killed, I promise you that I will give you a lot of money.”
10 King Zerk-sees liked the idea. So he took off his law ring and gave it to Haman the Aga-gite, the man who hated the Jews. 11 Then Zerk-sees said to Haman, “You can keep your money, and you can do what you like to those people.”
12 On the 13th day of the first month of the year, Haman had a meeting with all the men that wrote the law papers for the king. At that meeting Haman told them how to write the king's new law. That law said that all the Jewish people had to be killed. Persia was made up of a lot of different nations at that time, and they all had their own languages. And so Haman told his men to write that new law in different languages for all the nations that were part of Persia. Then Haman said to them, “Send those law papers to all the leaders in every part of the country and to all the important people of every tribe.”
Those law papers were written like the king wrote them himself. Each paper was rolled up and a small drop of hot wax was put on the edge of the paper to close it up. Then the king's law ring was pushed into the wax. This was done so that when people saw the picture in the wax they knew that the law came from the king and they had to do what was written on that paper. 13 Then those law papers were taken by messengers to every part of Persia.
The new law said that all the Jewish people in Persia had to be killed so that none of them was left alive. All the old people, the young people, men, women and children. Every Jewish person had to be killed, and it all had to happen on the 13th day of the last month of that year. The new law said that the people who killed the Jews could take all the things the dead people left behind.
14-15 The king told his messengers to go quickly from his palace and give out those papers in Susa and all over Persia. That way everyone would be ready to kill the Jews on the 13th day of the last month of that year.
Then the king and Haman sat down to drink wine together, but the rest of the people in Susa were upset by the new law.
* 3:1 The Aga-gites came from the Amal-kites who came from Jacob's brother Esau.