The king said.

‘Who is in the court?’

Now Haman had just entered the outer court of the king’s palace to speak to the king about having Mordecai hanged on the gallows that he had prepared for him. So the king’s servants told him.

‘Haman is there, standing in the court.’

The king said.

‘Let him come in.’

So Haman came in. The king said to him.

‘What shall be done to the man whom the king delights to honor?’

Haman said to himself.

‘Whom would the king wish to honor more than me?’

So Haman said to the king.

‘For the man whom the king wishes to honor,

Let royal robes be brought,

Which the king has worn,

Let him have a horse that the king has ridden.

Put a royal crown on its head.

Let the robes and the horse be handed over

To one of the king’s most noble officials.

Let him robe the man whom the king wishes to honor.

Let him conduct the man on horseback

Through the open square of the city.

Proclaiming before him.

‘Thus shall it be done for the man whom the king wishes to honor.’

Then the king said to Haman.

‘Quickly.

Take the robes and the horse,

As you have said,

Do so to Mordecai who sits at the king’s gate.

Leave out nothing that you have mentioned.’”

In a very interesting turn of events, who should show up as the king was trying to figure out how to reward Mordecai, but his mortal enemy Haman? Haman had been planning to kill Mordecai that very same day as he had come early to the king to get permission to hang Mordecai. Instead, he will end up honoring Mordecai because he thought that he himself was the honoree. When the king asked him how to honor someone, he assumed that he was the one to be honored. Thus he laid out plans to have a royal robe and a royal horse. He even said that a royal official should accompany him. Never did he realize that he was to be the royal official who would accompany Mordecai. What a revolting development for Haman and a reversal of fortune for Mordecai.