<t /><p class="bodytext">It so happened that on the third day Esther put on her royal attire and stood in the inner court of the palace,<n id="1" /> opposite the king&#8217;s quarters.<n id="2" /> The king was sitting on his royal throne in the palace, opposite the entrance.<n id="3" />

<p class="bodytext">The king&#8217;s scribes were quickly<n id="1" /> summoned &#8211; in the third month (that is, the month of Sivan), on the twenty-third day.<n id="2" /> They wrote out<n id="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<n id="4" /> &#8211; a hundred and twenty-seven provinces in all &#8211; 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.