I call on you solemnly in the Lord ¹  to have this letter read to all the brothers and sisters. ² 

Hezekiah took the letter ¹  from the messengers and read it. ²  Then Hezekiah went up to the Lord’s temple and spread it out before the Lord.

Hezekiah took the letter ¹  from the messengers and read it. ²  Then Hezekiah went up to the Lord’s temple and spread it out before the Lord.

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 

So Queen Esther, the daughter of Abihail, and Mordecai the Jew wrote with full authority to confirm this second ¹  letter about Purim.

They sent this letter with them: ¹  From the apostles ²  and elders, your brothers, ³  to the Gentile brothers and sisters ⁴  in Antioch, ⁵  Syria, ⁶  and Cilicia, greetings!

Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? We don’t need letters of recommendation to you or from you as some other people do, do we? ¹ 

“You have with you the sons of your master, chariots and horses, a fortified city, and weapons. So when this letter arrives, ¹ 

When they received the letter, they seized the king’s sons and executed all seventy of them. ¹  They put their heads in baskets and sent them to him in Jezreel.

(This is a copy of the letter they sent to him:) “To King Artaxerxes, ¹  from your servants in ²  Trans-Euphrates:

This is a copy of the letter that Tattenai governor of Trans-Euphrates, Shethar-Bozenai, and his colleagues who were the officials of Trans-Euphrates sent to King Darius.

Then I went to the governors of Trans-Euphrates, and I presented to them the letters from the king. The king had sent with me officers of the army and horsemen.

They were telling me about his good deeds and then taking back to him the things I said. ¹  Tobiah, on the other hand, sent letters in order to scare ²  me.

Letters were sent ¹  to all the Jews in the hundred and twenty-seven provinces of the empire of Ahasuerus – words of true peace ²  –

He sent it with Elasah son of Shaphan ¹  and Gemariah son of Hilkiah. ²  King Zedekiah of Judah had sent these men to Babylon to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. ³  The letter said:

because some say, “His letters are weighty and forceful, but his physical presence is weak ¹  and his speech is of no account.” ² 

Let such a person consider this: What we say ¹  by letters when we are absent, we also are in actions when we are present.

not to be easily ¹  shaken from your composure or disturbed by any kind of spirit or message or letter allegedly from us, ²  to the effect that the day of the Lord is already here.

In the letter he wrote: “Station Uriah in the thick of the battle and then withdraw from him so he will be cut down and killed.”

The men of the ¹  city, the leaders ²  and the nobles who lived there, ³  followed the written orders Jezebel had sent them. ⁴