² And he spoke in the presence of his brothers and ^(A)the ^[a]wealthy people of Samaria and said, “What are these feeble Jews doing? Are they going to restore the temple for themselves? Can they offer sacrifices? Can they finish it in a day? Can they revive the stones from the ^(B)heaps of rubble, even the burned ones?” ³ Now Tobiah the Ammonite was near him, and he said, “Even what they are building—^(C)if a fox were to ^[b]jump on it, it would break their stone wall down!”

^4 (D)Hear, O our God, how we are an object of contempt! ^(E)Return their taunting on their own heads, and turn them into plunder in a land of captivity.

⁶ But he ^[a]considered it beneath his dignity to ^[b]kill Mordecai alone, for they had told him who the people of Mordecai were; so Haman ^(A)sought to annihilate all the Jews, the people of Mordecai, who were found throughout the kingdom of Ahasuerus.

⁸ Then Haman said to King Ahasuerus, “There is a certain people scattered and dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom; ^(A)their laws are different from those of all other people and they do not ^[a]comply with the king’s laws, so it is not in the king’s interest to let them remain. ⁹ If it is pleasing to the king, let it be ^[b]decreed that they be eliminated, and I will pay ^[c]ten thousand talents of silver into the hands of those who carry out the king’s business, to put into the king’s treasuries.”