Esther (Greek) 4 - New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition 2021(NRSVUE)

Esther (Greek) 2Esther Becomes Queen

1 had said and how he had condemned her.

2Then the king’s servants said, “Let beautiful and virtuous young women be sought out for the king.

3 as well as seven young women chosen from the palace; he treated her and her maids with special favor in the harem.

10

14In the evening she enters, and in the morning she departs to the second harem, where Gai the king’s eunuch is in charge of the women, and she does not go in to the king again unless she is summoned by name.

15 vv 3, 7, 8 When the time was fulfilled for Esther daughter of Aminadab, the brother of Mordecai’s father, to go in to the king, she neglected none of the things that the eunuch in charge of the women had commanded. For Esther found favor in the eyes of all who saw her.

16So Esther went in to King Artaxerxes in the twelfth month, which is Adar, in the seventh year of his reign.

17Esth 1.11; Add Esth 1.11And the king loved Esther passionately, and she found favor beyond all the other virgins, and he put on her the queen’s diadem.

18Esth 1.7; 6.8Then the king gave a drinking party lasting seven days for all his Friends and the officers to celebrate his marriage to Esther, and he granted a remission of taxes to those who were under his rule.

The Plot Discovered

19 Add Esth 5.9, 13; 6.10, 12Meanwhile Mordecai was serving in the court.

20vv 7, 10Esther had not disclosed her country, for thus Mordecai had instructed her to fear God and keep his laws, just as she had done when she was with him. So Esther did not change her way of life.

21Now two of the king’s eunuchs, who were chief bodyguards, were upset because of Mordecai’s advancement, and they plotted to kill King Artaxerxes.

22Esth 6.2; Add Esth 6.2; 7.9The matter became known to Mordecai, and he warned Esther, who in turn revealed the plot to the king.

23Add Esth 6.1; 10.2He investigated the two eunuchs and hanged them. Then the king ordered that a record commemorating Mordecai’s goodwill be deposited in the royal archive.