King James Version · The Persian return
Additions to Esther 16
Touch any underlined name to see who or where it is.
1The great king unto the princes and governors of an hundred and seven and twenty provinces from India unto , and unto all our subjects, greeting. 2Many, the more often they are honoured with the great bounty of their princes, the more proud they are waxen, 3And endeavour to hurt not our subjects only, but not being able to bear abundance, do take in hand to practise also against those that do them good: 4And take not only thankfulness away from among men, but also lifted up with the words of lewd persons, that were never good, they think to escape the justice of , that seeth all things and hateth evil. 5Oftentimes also fair speech of those, that are put in to manage their friends’ affairs, hath caused many that are to be partakers of innocent , and hath enwrapped them in remediless calamities: 6Beguiling with the falsehood and deceit of their lewd disposition the innocency and goodness of princes. 7Now ye may see this, as we have declared, not so much by ancient histories, as ye may, if ye search what hath been wickedly done of late through the pestilent behaviour of them that are unworthily placed . 8And we must take care for the time to come, that our kingdom may be quiet and peaceable for all men, 9Both by changing our purposes, and always judging things that are evident with more equal proceeding. 10For , a Macedonian, the son of Amadatha, being indeed a from the , and far distant from our goodness, and as a received of us, 11Had so far forth obtained the that we shew toward every nation, as that he was called , and was continually honoured of all the next person unto the king. 12But he, not bearing his great dignity, went about to deprive us of our kingdom and life: 13Having by manifold and cunning deceits sought of us the , as well of , who our life, and continually procured our good, as also of blameless , partaker of our kingdom, with their whole nation. 14For by these means he thought, finding us destitute of friends to have translated of the to the Macedonians. 15But we find that the , whom this wretch hath to utter , are no , but live by most laws: 16And that they be children of and most mighty, living , who hath ordered both unto us and to our progenitors in the most excellent manner. 17Wherefore ye shall do well not to put in execution the letters sent unto you by the son of Amadatha. 18For he that was the worker of these things, is hanged at the of with all his family: , who ruleth all things, speedily rendering to him according to his deserts. 19Therefore ye shall publish the copy of this letter in all places, that the may freely live after their own laws. 20And ye shall aid them, that even the same day, being the thirteenth day of the twelfth month , they may be on them, who in the time of their affliction shall set upon them. 21For Almighty hath turned to joy unto them the day, wherein the chosen people should have . 22Ye shall therefore among your solemn feasts keep it an high day with all feasting: 23That both now and hereafter there may be safety to us and the well affected ; but to those which do conspire against us a memorial of . 24Therefore every city and country whatsoever, which shall not do according to these things, shall be destroyed without mercy with and , and shall be made not only unpassable for men, but also most hateful to wild and fowls for ever.
The 1611 translation, public domain. Its original printing included the Apocrypha, which is why the deuterocanonical books can be read here. Notes and cards are EKLI’s own.
The world at this moment · The Persian return, 539 BC to 332 BC ›
Persia takes Babylon and reverses its policy, sending exiled peoples home to rebuild their temples. Judah returns as a small province, rebuilding under imperial permission rather than independence.
- Persia
- The largest empire the world had yet seen, from the Indus to the Aegean, run through provinces, a royal road, and a postal system. Its policy on conquered peoples was to send them home and fund their temples, in exchange for loyalty and prayers for the king. The Cyrus Cylinder states the policy in Cyrus's own words, and Ezra opens with the same policy applied to Judah.
- Judah
- A small, poor province called Yehud, a fraction of the old kingdom, with a rebuilt temple that made the people who remembered the first one weep. No king, and no prospect of one. Leadership passes to priests and scribes, which shapes everything afterward.
- Greece
- Persia and Greece collide at Marathon and Salamis, Persia loses, and Athens spends the following decades on the Parthenon, tragedy, and Socrates. Herodotus writes the first history in order to explain that war. Then Plato and Aristotle, whose vocabulary the church will still be using at Nicaea eight centuries later.
- Further afield
- Rome throws out its kings and becomes a republic. In India and China this is the age of the Buddha's early followers and of Confucian teaching taking hold. More of what the world still thinks with was invented in this era than in almost any other.