Esther 10

1 King Xerxes required that all the people in his empire pay taxes. Even the people who lived on the islands [in the Mediterranean Sea] (OR, in coastal areas) were required to pay taxes.

And the king Ahasuerus laid a tribute upon the land, and [upon] the isles of the sea.

2 And all the great and powerful things that Xerxes did were written in the scroll called/entitled ‘The record of the things done by the kings of Media and Persia’. In this book were also written [the things done] by Mordecai, the man whom the king had greatly honored.

And all the acts of his power and of his might, and the declaration of the greatness of Mordecai, to which the king advanced him, [are] they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Media and Persia?

3 Mordecai, who was a Jew, became the king’s most important official, and [all] the Jews also considered him to be a very great man. They [all] respected him, because he did many good things for the Jews, and he often asked [the king] to do good things for them.

For Mordecai the Jew [was] next to king Ahasuerus, and great among the Jews, and accepted by the multitude of his brethren, seeking the wealth of his people, and speaking peace to all his seed.