WEDNESDAY’S WORD
November 6, 2013
Esther: Release from
destruction (part 1 of 4)
Psalm 25:15 NIV ~ My eyes are ever on the Lord,
for only he will release my feet from the snare.
Esther 1:8-17
8 When the king’s order and edict had
been proclaimed, many young women were brought to the citadel of Susa and put
under the care of Hegai. Esther also was taken to the king’s palace and
entrusted to Hegai, who had charge of the harem. 9 She
pleased him and won his favor. Immediately he provided her with her beauty
treatments and special food. He assigned to her seven female
attendants selected from the king’s palace and moved her and her attendants
into the best place in the harem. 10 Esther had not revealed her
nationality and family background, because Mordecai had forbidden her to do so.11 Every
day he walked back and forth near the courtyard of the harem to find out how
Esther was and what was happening to her. 12 Before a young woman’s turn came to
go in to King Xerxes, she had to complete twelve months of beauty
treatments prescribed for the women, six months with oil of myrrh and six with
perfumes and cosmetics. 13 And this is how she
would go to the king: Anything she wanted was given her to take with her from
the harem to the king’s palace. 14 In the evening
she would go there and in the morning return to another part of the harem to
the care of Shaashgaz, the king’s eunuch who was in charge of the
concubines. She would not return to the king unless he was pleased with
her and summoned her by name. 15 When the turn came for Esther (the
young woman Mordecai had adopted, the daughter of his uncle Abihail) to go to
the king, she asked for nothing other than what Hegai, the king’s eunuch
who was in charge of the harem, suggested. And Esther won the favor of
everyone who saw her. 16 She was taken to King
Xerxes in the royal residence in the tenth month, the month of Tebeth, in the
seventh year of his reign.
17 Now the king was attracted to Esther
more than to any of the other women, and she won his favor and approval more
than any of the other virgins. So he set a royal crown on her head and made her
queen instead of Vashti. 18 And the king gave
a great banquet, Esther’s banquet, for all his nobles and
officials. He proclaimed a holiday throughout the provinces and
distributed gifts with royal liberality.
