Author
—
Written
c. 460–350 BC
Chapters
10
Audience
Jewish people living in the Persian diaspora
Queen Vashti is deposed after refusing to appear before King Ahasuerus, setting the stage for a new queen.
Chapter 1Read in Bible
Esther is chosen as queen while Mordecai uncovers and reports a plot against the king's life.
Chapter 2Read in Bible
Haman is promoted and, enraged by Mordecai's refusal to bow, plots to destroy all the Jews in Persia.
Chapter 3Read in Bible
Mordecai urges Esther to intercede for her people, and she resolves to approach the king despite the mortal risk.
Chapter 4Read in Bible
Esther hosts banquets for the king and Haman, while Mordecai is publicly honored for his earlier loyalty to the king.
Chapter 5 → Chapter 6Read in Bible
Esther exposes Haman's plot to the king, and Haman is executed on the very gallows he built for Mordecai.
Chapter 7Read in Bible
The king grants the Jews the right to defend themselves, and after their victory the festival of Purim is established.
Chapter 8 → Chapter 9Read in Bible
Mordecai's greatness and his continued advocacy for the Jewish people are recorded as a lasting testimony.
Chapter 10Read in Bible
"For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father's family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?"
Esther 4:14"Go, gather together all the Jews who are in Susa, and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my attendants will fast as you do. When this is done, I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish."
Esther 4:16"In every province and in every city to which the edict of the king came, there was joy and gladness among the Jews, with feasting and celebrating. And many people of other nationalities became Jews because fear of the Jews had seized them."
Esther 8:17"as the time when the Jews got relief from their enemies, and as the month when their sorrow was turned into joy and their mourning into a day of celebration. He wrote them to observe the days as days of feasting and joy and giving presents of food to one another and gifts to the poor."
Esther 9:22The book of Esther recounts how a young Jewish woman named Esther, raised by her cousin Mordecai, becomes queen of Persia and risks her life to save her people from the genocidal plot of the royal official Haman. Though God is never explicitly mentioned, the book powerfully illustrates divine providence at work through seemingly coincidental events to preserve the Jewish people. It provides the historical and theological foundation for the Jewish festival of Purim, celebrating God's hidden yet active protection of His covenant people.