Because of this I am writing these things while absent, so that when I arrive ¹  I may not have to deal harshly with you ²  by using my authority – the Lord gave it to me for building up, not for tearing down!

But now ¹  I ask you, lady (not as if I were ²  writing a new commandment ³  to you, but the one ⁴  we have had from the beginning), ⁵  that ⁶  we love one another.

A copy of this edict was to be presented as law throughout every province; it was to be made known to all the inhabitants, ¹  so that they would be prepared for this day.

“If only I had ¹  someone to hear me! Here is my signature – ²  let the Almighty answer me! If only I had an indictment ³  that my accuser had written. ⁴ 

For we do not write you anything other than what ¹  you can read and also understand. But I hope that you will understand completely ² 

Then ¹  I saw in the right hand of the one who was seated on the throne a scroll written on the front and back ²  and sealed with seven seals. ³ 

Then ¹  he bent over again and wrote on the ground.

Pilate answered, “What I have written, I have written.”

I, Paul, send this greeting with my own hand.

Esther’s command established these matters of Purim, and the matter was officially recorded. ¹ 

“It was said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife must give her a legal document.’ ¹ 

They said to him, “Why then did Moses command us to give a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her?” ¹ 

Since I was confident that you would obey, I wrote to you, because I knew that you would do even more than ¹  what I am asking you to do.

The Lord ¹  then wrote on the tablets the same words, ²  the ten commandments, ³  which he ⁴  had spoken to you at the mountain from the middle of the fire at the time of that assembly, and he ⁵  gave them to me.

Next, I noticed ¹  six men ²  coming from the direction of the upper gate ³  which faces north, each with his war club in his hand. Among them was a man dressed in linen with a writing kit ⁴  at his side. They came and stood beside the bronze altar.

Then the glory of the God of Israel went up from the cherub where it had rested to the threshold of the temple. ¹  He called to the man dressed in linen who had the writing kit at his side.

And during the reign ¹  of Artaxerxes, Bishlam, ²  Mithredath, Tabeel, and the rest of their colleagues ³  wrote to King Artaxerxes ⁴  of Persia. This letter ⁵  was first written in Aramaic but then translated. [Aramaic:] ⁶ 

A copy of the edict was to be presented as law throughout each and every province and made known to all peoples, so that the Jews might be prepared on that ¹  day to avenge themselves from their enemies.

But when the matter came to the king’s attention, the king ¹  gave written orders that Haman’s ²  evil intentions that he had devised against the Jews should fall on his own head. He and his sons were hanged on the gallows.

The king’s scribes were quickly ¹  summoned – in the third month (that is, the month of Sivan), on the twenty-third day. ²  They wrote out ³  everything that Mordecai instructed to the Jews and to the satraps and the governors and the officials of the provinces all the way from India to Ethiopia ⁴  – a hundred and twenty-seven provinces in all – to each province in its own script and to each people in their own language, and to the Jews according to their own script and their own language.