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Haman (to the king): All the provinces in your kingdom are overrun with one insignificant group of foreigners, people who haven’t adopted our customs. Their laws differ from all other peoples’, and they do not keep your laws. Therefore it’s not a good idea for you to tolerate them or their actions any longer. If it is your wish, sign an order that these people be destroyed, and I will bear all the costs. I’ll pay 375 tons of silver directly to those who carry out the king’s business in order to relieve the royal treasury of the expense.

10 Not knowing which group of foreigners was being targeted, the king took his signet ring, the symbol of his power and authority, from his finger and passed it to Haman (son of Hammedatha, the Agagite), who hated the Jews.

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Then Haman said to King Xerxes, “There is a certain people dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom who keep themselves separate. Their customs(A) are different from those of all other people, and they do not obey(B) the king’s laws; it is not in the king’s best interest to tolerate them.(C) If it pleases the king, let a decree be issued to destroy them, and I will give ten thousand talents[a] of silver to the king’s administrators for the royal treasury.”(D)

10 So the king took his signet ring(E) from his finger and gave it to Haman son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, the enemy of the Jews.

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Footnotes

  1. Esther 3:9 That is, about 375 tons or about 340 metric tons