After Addition A comes chapters 1, 2, and 3: The king gives a banquet--lots of drinking for lots of days. On the seventh day, he directs Queen Vashti to come dance for them. She refuses. He fires her for giving this bad example to other wives. He soon misses having a wife. When a nation-wide search for a new queen is begun, Mordecai offers his foster child, his niece, Esther. The king picked her to be his new queen. She kept her Jewishness a secret. Mordecai discovered a plot to kill the king. He told Esther who told the king. Not all is well. Mordecai refused to do obeisance to the newly promoted Haman who was so angry at this insult that he persuaded the king to destroy all the Jews.
Addition B. The king sends a letter throughout the kingdom stating that his advisor Haman has warned him that the Jews who live among them are strange and harmful because they follow their own way of life and have their own laws. They are so dangerous that they all should be destroyed.
I'm reading this letter and thinking about what I have also been reading recently of the blanket condemnation of Muslims because of the totally unacceptable actions of some.
Addition C is the prayers that Mordecai and Esther make to God after learning of the threat against the Jews. In her prayer, Esther assures God that she abhors being in a lofty position and has refused to eat at Haman's table.
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