Meditate

9. Triumph of the Jews

Destruction of the Enemies of the Jews

 9

Now in the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar, on the thirteenth day, when the king’s command and edict were about to be executed, on the very day when the enemies of the Jews hoped to gain power over them, but which had been changed to a day when the Jews would gain power over their foes,²the Jews gathered in their cities throughout all the provinces of King Ahasuerus to lay hands on those who had sought their ruin; and no one could withstand them, because the fear of them had fallen upon all peoples.³All the officials of the provinces, the satraps and the governors, and the royal officials were supporting the Jews, because the fear of Mordecai had fallen upon them.⁴For Mordecai was powerful in the king’s house, and his fame spread throughout all the provinces as the man Mordecai grew more and more powerful.⁵So the Jews struck down all their enemies with the sword, slaughtering, and destroying them, and did as they pleased to those who hated them.⁶In the citadel of Susa the Jews killed and destroyed five hundred people.⁷They killed Parshandatha, Dalphon, Aspatha,⁸Poratha, Adalia, Aridatha,⁹Parmashta, Arisai, Aridai, Vaizatha,¹⁰the ten sons of Haman son of Hammedatha, the enemy of the Jews; but they did not touch the plunder.

¹¹ That very day the number of those killed in the citadel of Susa was reported to the king.¹²The king said to Queen Esther, “In the citadel of Susa the Jews have killed five hundred people and also the ten sons of Haman. What have they done in the rest of the king’s provinces? Now what is your petition? It shall be granted you. And what further is your request? It shall be fulfilled.”¹³Esther said, “If it pleases the king, let the Jews who are in Susa be allowed tomorrow also to do according to this day’s edict, and let the ten sons of Haman be hanged on the gallows.”¹⁴So the king commanded this to be done; a decree was issued in Susa, and the ten sons of Haman were hanged.¹⁵The Jews who were in Susa gathered also on the fourteenth day of the month of Adar and they killed three hundred persons in Susa; but they did not touch the plunder.

¹⁶ Now the other Jews who were in the king’s provinces also gathered to defend their lives, and gained relief from their enemies, and killed seventy-five thousand of those who hated them; but they laid no hands on the plunder.¹⁷This was on the thirteenth day of the month of Adar, and on the fourteenth day they rested and made that a day of feasting and gladness.

The Feast of Purim Inaugurated

¹⁸ But the Jews who were in Susa gathered on the thirteenth day and on the fourteenth, and rested on the fifteenth day, making that a day of feasting and gladness.¹⁹Therefore the Jews of the villages, who live in the open towns, hold the fourteenth day of the month of Adar as a day for gladness and feasting, a holiday on which they send gifts of food to one another.

²⁰ Mordecai recorded these things, and sent letters to all the Jews who were in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus, both near and far,²¹enjoining them that they should keep the fourteenth day of the month Adar and also the fifteenth day of the same month, year by year,²²as the days on which the Jews gained relief from their enemies, and as the month that had been turned for them from sorrow into gladness and from mourning into a holiday; that they should make them days of feasting and gladness, days for sending gifts of food to one another and presents to the poor.²³So the Jews adopted as a custom what they had begun to do, as Mordecai had written to them.

²⁴ Haman son of Hammedatha the Agagite, the enemy of all the Jews, had plotted against the Jews to destroy them, and had cast Pur—that is “the lot”—to crush and destroy them;²⁵but when Esther came before the king, he gave orders in writing that the wicked plot that he had devised against the Jews should come upon his own head, and that he and his sons should be hanged on the gallows.²⁶Therefore these days are called Purim, from the word Pur. Thus because of all that was written in this letter, and of what they had faced in this matter, and of what had happened to them,²⁷the Jews established and accepted as a custom for themselves and their descendants and all who joined them, that without fail they would continue to observe these two days every year, as it was written and at the time appointed.²⁸These days should be remembered and kept throughout every generation, in every family, province, and city; and these days of Purim should never fall into disuse among the Jews, nor should the commemoration of these days cease among their descendants.

²⁹ Queen Esther daughter of Abihail, along with the Jew Mordecai, gave full written authority, confirming this second letter about Purim.³⁰Letters were sent wishing peace and security to all the Jews, to the one hundred twenty-seven provinces of the kingdom of Ahasuerus,³¹and giving orders that these days of Purim should be observed at their appointed seasons, as the Jew Mordecai and Queen Esther enjoined on the Jews, just as they had laid down for themselves and for their descendants regulations concerning their fasts and their lamentations.³²The command of Queen Esther fixed these practices of Purim, and it was recorded in writing.

2. Favoritism Forbidden

Faith without Works Is Dead

¹⁴ What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you?¹⁵If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food,¹⁶and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that?¹⁷So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.

¹⁸ But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith.¹⁹You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder.

78. Psalm 78

40

How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness

and grieved him in the desert!

41

They tested God again and again,

and provoked the Holy One of Israel.

42

They did not keep in mind his power,

or the day when he redeemed them from the foe;

43

when he displayed his signs in Egypt,

and his miracles in the fields of Zoan.

44

He turned their rivers to blood,

so that they could not drink of their streams.

45

He sent among them swarms of flies, which devoured them,

and frogs, which destroyed them.

46

He gave their crops to the caterpillar,

and the fruit of their labor to the locust.

47

He destroyed their vines with hail,

and their sycamores with frost.

48

He gave over their cattle to the hail,

and their flocks to thunderbolts.

49

He let loose on them his fierce anger,

wrath, indignation, and distress,

a company of destroying angels.

50

He made a path for his anger;

he did not spare them from death,

but gave their lives over to the plague.

51

He struck all the firstborn in Egypt,

the first issue of their strength in the tents of Ham.

52

Then he led out his people like sheep,

and guided them in the wilderness like a flock.

53

He led them in safety, so that they were not afraid;

but the sea overwhelmed their enemies.

54

And he brought them to his holy hill,

to the mountain that his right hand had won.

55

He drove out nations before them;

he apportioned them for a possession

and settled the tribes of Israel in their tents.