Esther 7

World English Bible 79 include this book

1 So the king and Haman came to banquet with Esther the queen.

2 The king said again to Esther on the second day at the banquet of wine, “What is your petition, queen Esther? It shall be granted you. What is your request? Even to the half of the kingdom it shall be performed.”

3 Then Esther the queen answered, “If I have found favor in your sight, O king, and if it pleases the king, let my life be given me at my petition, and my people at my request.

4 For we are sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be slain, and to perish. But if we had been sold for male and female slaves, I would have held my peace, although the adversary could not have compensated for the king’s loss.”

5 Then King Ahasuerus said to Esther the queen, “Who is he, and where is he who dared presume in his heart to do so?”

6 Esther said, “An adversary and an enemy, even this wicked Haman!” Then Haman was afraid before the king and the queen.

7 The king arose in his wrath from the banquet of wine and went into the palace garden. Haman stood up to make request for his life to Esther the queen, for he saw that there was evil determined against him by the king.

8 Then the king returned out of the palace garden into the place of the banquet of wine; and Haman had fallen on the couch where Esther was. Then the king said, “Will he even assault the queen in front of me in the house?” As the word went out of the king’s mouth, they covered Haman’s face.

9 Then Harbonah, one of the eunuchs who were with the king, said, “Behold, the gallows fifty cubits high, which Haman has made for Mordecai, who spoke good for the king, is standing at Haman’s house.” The king said, “Hang him on it!”

10 So they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai. Then the king’s wrath was pacified.

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3 places named in this book — no place is named in this chapter, so the whole book is shown.

Where this was written

Susa attested The narrative is set in the Persian winter capital at Susa.

When this was written

Traditions differ. Each position is shown rather than one asserted as settled.

Traditional: 465 BC–425 BC Mordecai
Placed close to the Persian court it describes.
Critical: 400 BC–300 BC Anonymous
Persian loanwords and the story's distance from events suggest later composition.

Elsewhere in the world

Events overlapping the period this book is dated to (465 BC–300 BC).

1200 BC–400 BC Olmec civilisation Mesoamerica
The earliest major Mesoamerican civilisation, known for colossal stone heads and an early calendar.
1070 BC–350 AD The kingdom of Kush Africa
A Nubian power on the upper Nile that ruled Egypt itself as its twenty-fifth dynasty.
550 BC–330 BC The Persian empire founded Persia
Cyrus and his successors ruled from the Aegean to the Indus, the largest empire the world had yet seen.
500 BC–500 AD The Nazca lines South America
Vast figures drawn on the Peruvian desert, visible only from the surrounding hills.
499 BC–449 BC Greco-Persian wars Greece
Persia's attempts to subdue the Greek mainland failed at Marathon, Salamis and Plataea.
322 BC–185 BC The Mauryan empire India
The first empire to unite most of the Indian subcontinent.
300 BC Euclid's Elements Egypt
A geometry textbook still in use two thousand years later.
484 BC–425 BC Herodotus writes his Histories Greece
The first sustained attempt to inquire into the causes of events rather than simply record them.

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