צָוָה

Esther still had not revealed her lineage or her people, just as Mordecai had instructed. She obeyed Mordecai’s command, as she had done under his care.

All the royal servants at the king’s gate bowed down and paid homage to Haman, because the king had commanded that this be done for him. But Mordecai would not bow down or pay homage.

On the thirteenth day of the first month, the royal scribes were summoned and the order was written exactly as Haman commanded the royal satraps, the governors of each province, and the officials of each people, in the script of each province and the language of every people. It was written in the name of King Xerxes and sealed with the royal signet ring.

Then Esther summoned Hathach, one of the king’s eunuchs appointed to her, and she dispatched him to Mordecai to learn what was troubling him and why.

Mordecai also gave Hathach a copy of the written decree issued in Susa for the destruction of the Jews, to show and explain to Esther, urging her to approach the king, implore his favor, and plead before him for her people.

Then Esther spoke to Hathach and instructed him to tell Mordecai,

So Mordecai went and did all that Esther had instructed him.

At once the royal scribes were summoned, and on the twenty-third day of the third month (the month of Sivan), they recorded all of Mordecai’s orders to the Jews and to the satraps, governors, and princes of the 127 provinces from India to Cush—writing to each province in its own script, to every people in their own language, and to the Jews in their own script and language.

He fills His hands with lightning and commands it to strike its mark.

They swirl about, whirling at His direction, accomplishing all that He commands over the face of all the earth.

In your days, have you commanded the morning or assigned the dawn its place,

Arise, O LORD, in Your anger; rise up against the fury of my enemies. Awake, my God, and ordain judgment.

For He spoke, and it came to be; He commanded, and it stood firm.

The LORD decrees His loving devotion by day, and at night His song is with me as a prayer to the God of my life.

You are my King, O God, who ordains victories for Jacob.

Summon Your power, O God; show Your strength, O God, which You have exerted on our behalf.

Be my rock of refuge, where I can always go. Give the command to save me, for You are my rock and my fortress.

For He established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which He commanded our fathers to teach to their children,

Yet He commanded the clouds above and opened the doors of the heavens.

For He will command His angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways.

He remembers His covenant forever, the word He ordained for a thousand generations—

He has sent redemption to His people; He has ordained His covenant forever; holy and awesome is His name.

You have ordained Your precepts, that we should keep them diligently.

The testimonies You have laid down are righteous and altogether faithful.

It is like the dew of Hermon falling on the mountains of Zion. For there the LORD has bestowed the blessing of life forevermore.

Let them praise the name of the LORD, for He gave the command and they were created.

I will make it a wasteland, neither pruned nor cultivated, and thorns and briers will grow up. I will command the clouds that rain shall not fall on it.”

I will send him against a godless nation; I will dispatch him against a people destined for My rage, to take spoils and seize plunder, and to trample them down like clay in the streets.

I have commanded My sanctified ones; I have even summoned My warriors to execute My wrath and exult in My triumph.

The LORD has stretched out His hand over the sea; He has made kingdoms tremble. He has given a command that the strongholds of Canaan be destroyed.

Search and read the scroll of the LORD: Not one of these will go missing, not one will lack her mate, because He has ordered it by His mouth, and He will gather them by His Spirit.

In those days Hezekiah became mortally ill. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz came to him and said, “This is what the LORD says: ‘Put your house in order, for you are about to die; you will not recover.’”

Thus says the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, and its Maker: “Concerning things to come, do you question Me about My sons, or instruct Me in the work of My hands?

It is I who made the earth and created man upon it. It was My hands that stretched out the heavens, and I ordained all their host.

Therefore I declared it to you long ago; I announced it before it came to pass, so that you could not claim, ‘My idol has done this; my carved image and molten god has ordained it.’

Behold, I have made him a witness to the nations, a leader and commander of the peoples.

But the LORD told me: “Do not say, ‘I am only a child.’ For to everyone I send you, you must go, and all that I command you, you must speak.

Get yourself ready. Stand up and tell them everything that I command you. Do not be intimidated by them, or I will terrify you before them.

For when I brought your fathers out of the land of Egypt, I did not merely command them about burnt offerings and sacrifices,

…but this is what I commanded them: Obey Me, and I will be your God, and you will be My people. You must walk in all the ways I have commanded you, so that it may go well with you.

They have built the high places of Topheth in the Valley of Ben-hinnom so they could burn their sons and daughters in the fire—something I never commanded, nor did it even enter My mind.

…which I commanded your forefathers when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, out of the iron furnace, saying, ‘Obey Me, and do everything I command you, and you will be My people, and I will be your God.’

Yet they would not obey or incline their ears, but each one followed the stubbornness of his evil heart. So I brought on them all the curses of this covenant I had commanded them to follow but they did not keep.”

So I went and hid it at Perath, as the LORD had commanded me.

Many days later the LORD said to me, “Arise, go to Perath, and get the loincloth that I commanded you to hide there.”

“The prophets are prophesying lies in My name,” replied the LORD. “I did not send them or appoint them or speak to them. They are prophesying to you a false vision, a worthless divination, the futility and delusion of their own minds.

You must not carry a load out of your houses or do any work on the Sabbath day, but you must keep the Sabbath day holy, just as I commanded your forefathers.

They have built high places to Baal on which to burn their children in the fire as offerings to Baal—something I never commanded or mentioned, nor did it even enter My mind.