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And Mardochaeus returned to the palace: but Aman went home mourning, and having his head covered.

And Aman related the events that had befallen him to Zosara his wife, and to his friends: and his friends and his wife said to him, If Mardochaeus be of the race of the Jews, and thou hast begun to be humbled before him, thou wilt assuredly fall, and thou wilt not be able to withstand him, for the living God is with him.

And she spoke yet again to the king, and fell at his feet, and besought him to do away the mischief of Aman, and all that he had done against the Jews.

And the king said to Esther, If I have given and freely granted thee all that was Aman’s, and hanged him on a gallows, because he laid his hands upon the Jews, what dost thou yet further seek?

And they were written by order of the king, and sealed with his ring, and they sent the letters by the posts:

On this account then it is that the Jews dispersed in every foreign land keep the fourteenth of Adar as a holy day with joy, sending portions each to his neighbour.

also how he went in to the king, telling him to hang Mardochaeus: but all the calamities he tried to bring upon the Jews came upon himself, and he was hanged, and his children.

And the king levied a tax upon his kingdom both by land and sea.

And as for his strength and valour, and the wealth and glory of his kingdom, behold, they are written in the book of the Persians and Medes, for a memorial.

And Mardochaeus was viceroy to king Artaxerxes, and was a great man in the kingdom, and honoured by the Jews, and passed his life beloved of all his nation.

And his cattle consisted of seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, five hundred she-asses in the pastures, and a very great household, and he had a great husbandry on the earth; and that man was most noble of the men of the east.

And his sons visiting one another prepared a banquet every day, taking with them also their three sisters to eat and drink with them.

Hast thou not made a hedge about him, and about his household, and all his possessions round about? and hast thou not blessed the works of his hands, and multiplied his cattle upon the land?

And it came to pass on a certain day, that Job’s sons and his daughters were drinking wine in the house of their elder brother.

So Job arose, and rent his garments, and shaved the hair of his head, and fell on the earth, and worshipped,

And the Lord said to the devil, Hast thou then observed my servant Job, that there is none of men upon the earth like him, a harmless, true, blameless, godly man, abstaining from all evil? and he yet cleaves to innocence, whereas thou has told me to destroy his substance without cause?

And the devil answered and said to the Lord, Skin for skin, all that a man has will he give as a ransom for his life.

Nay, but put forth thine hand, and touch his bones and his flesh: verily he will bless thee to thy face.

And the Lord said to the devil, Behold, I deliver him up to thee; only save his life.

So the devil went out from the Lord, and smote Job with sore boils from his feet to his head.