Psalms 94:20

²No, in your heart you plot injustice. You measure out the violence of your hands in the earth.

¹Woe to those who decree unrighteous decrees, and to the writers who write oppressive decrees

⁵⁷Now the chief priests and the Pharisees had commanded that if anyone knew where he was, he should report it, that they might seize him.

¹⁶Moreover I saw under the sun, in the place of justice, that wickedness was there; and in the place of righteousness, that wickedness was there.

¹⁵It was given to him to give breath to the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause as many as wouldn’t worship the image of the beast to be killed. ¹⁶He causes all, the small and the great, the rich and the poor, and the free and the slave, to be given marks on their right hands or on their foreheads; ¹⁷and that no one would be able to buy or to sell unless he has that mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name.

⁶But he scorned the thought of laying hands on Mordecai alone, for they had made known to him Mordecai’s people. Therefore Haman sought to destroy all the Jews who were throughout the whole kingdom of Ahasuerus, even Mordecai’s people.

⁷In the first month, which is the month Nisan, in the twelfth year of King Ahasuerus, they cast Pur, that is, the lot, before Haman from day to day, and from month to month, and chose the twelfth month, which is the month Adar. ⁸Haman said to King Ahasuerus, “There is a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom, and their laws are different from other people’s. They don’t keep the king’s laws. Therefore it is not for the king’s profit to allow them to remain. ⁹If it pleases the king, let it be written that they be destroyed; and I will pay ten thousand talents^[+] of silver into the hands of those who are in charge of the king’s business, to bring it into the king’s treasuries.”

¹⁰The king took his ring from his hand, and gave it to Haman the son of Hammedatha the Agagite, the Jews’ enemy. ¹¹The king said to Haman, “The silver is given to you, the people also, to do with them as it seems good to you.”

¹²Then the king’s scribes were called in on the first month, on the thirteenth day of the month; and all that Haman commanded was written to the king’s local governors, and to the governors who were over every province, and to the princes of every people, to every province according to its writing, and to every people in their language. It was written in the name of King Ahasuerus, and it was sealed with the king’s ring.

⁴Then the herald cried aloud, “To you it is commanded, peoples, nations, and languages, ⁵that whenever you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipe, and all kinds of music, you fall down and worship the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king has set up. ⁶Whoever doesn’t fall down and worship shall be cast into the middle of a burning fiery furnace the same hour.”

⁷Therefore at that time, when all the peoples heard the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipe, and all kinds of music, all the peoples, the nations, and the languages fell down and worshiped the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up.

⁷All the presidents of the kingdom, the deputies and the local governors, the counselors and the governors, have consulted together to establish a royal statute and to make a strong decree, that whoever asks a petition of any god or man for thirty days, except of you, O king, he shall be cast into the den of lions. ⁸Now, O king, establish the decree and sign the writing, that it not be changed, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which doesn’t alter.” ⁹Therefore King Darius signed the writing and the decree.

³Alas for you who put far away the evil day, and cause the seat of violence to come near,

¹⁶For the statutes of Omri are kept, and all the works of Ahab’s house. You walk in their counsels, that I may make you a ruin, and your inhabitants a hissing. You will bear the reproach of my people.”