Ester 3:13

3:13 Letters were sent by the runners to all the king’s provinces stating that ¹  they should destroy, kill, and annihilate all the Jews, from youth to elderly, both women and children, ²  on a particular day, namely the thirteenth day ³  of the twelfth month (that is, the month of Adar), and to loot and plunder their possessions.

Ester 8:9

8:9 The king’s scribes were quickly ⁴  summoned – in the third month (that is, the month of Sivan), on the twenty-third day. ⁵  They wrote out ⁶  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 ⁷  – 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.

[3:13]  ¹ tn The words “stating that” are not in the Hebrew text but have been supplied in the translation for clarity.

[3:13]  ² tn Heb “children and women.” The translation follows contemporary English idiom, which reverses the order.

[3:13]  ³ tc The LXX does not include the words “on the thirteenth day.”

[8:9]  ⁴ tn Heb “in that time”; NIV “At once.”

[8:9]  ⁵ sn Cf. 3:12. Two months and ten days have passed since Haman’s edict to wipe out the Jews.

[8:9]  ⁶ tn Heb “it was written”; this passive construction has been converted to an active one in the translation for clarity and for stylistic reasons.

[8:9]  ⁷ tn Heb “Cush” (so NIV), referring to the region of the upper Nile in Africa. Cf. KJV and most other English versions “Ethiopia.”