Ê-xơ-tê 6

The king cannot sleep

¹That night the king could not sleep. So he ordered the book of records, the chronicles, to be brought, and they were read aloud to the king. ²There it was found written that Mordecai had exposed Bigthana and Teresh, two of the king’s eunuchs who guarded the doorway, who had plotted to assassinate King Ahasuerus. ³The king asked, “What honor or high rank has been given to Mordecai for this?” The young men who attended the king answered, “Nothing has been done for him.” ⁴The king said, “Who is in the court?” Now Haman had just entered the outer court of the palace to ask the king to have Mordecai hanged on the gallows he had set up for him.^{a 5}The king’s attendants told him, “Haman is standing in the court.” “Let him come in,” the king said. ⁶When Haman came in, the king asked him, “What should be done for the man the king delights to honor?” Haman thought to himself, “Whom would the king delight to honor more than me?” ⁷Haman answered the king, “For the man the king delights to honor, ⁸let royal robes be brought that the king himself has worn, and a horse that the king has ridden, one with a royal crown placed on its head,^{b 9}and let the robes and the horse be handed to one of the king’s most noble officials. Let them dress the man the king delights to honor, lead him on horseback through the city square, and proclaim before him, ‘This is what is done for the man the king delights to honor!’” ¹⁰Then the king said to Haman, “Hurry! Take the robes and the horse just as you have said, and do this for Mordecai the Jew, who sits at the king’s gate. Do not leave out anything you have proposed.” ¹¹So Haman took the robes and the horse. He dressed Mordecai, led him on horseback through the city square, and proclaimed before him, “This is what is done for the man the king delights to honor!” ¹²Then Mordecai returned to the king’s gate, but Haman hurried home, grieving, with his head covered. ¹³Haman told his wife Zeresh and all his friends everything that had happened to him. His advisers and his wife Zeresh said to him, “If Mordecai, before whom you have begun to fall, is of Jewish descent, you will not get the better of him. You will certainly fall before him.” ¹⁴While they were still talking with him, the king’s eunuchs arrived and hurried Haman off to the banquet Esther had prepared.