The decree for the extermination of the Jews (Greek text only)

“Therefore we have decreed that those indicated to you in the letters written by Haman be destroyed. Haman is in charge of affairs and is our second father. He wishes that all these people, with their wives and children included, be utterly destroyed by the sword. We must be rid of our enemies, without pity or restraint, on the fourteenth day of the twelfth month, Adar, of this present year. Thus those who have long been hostile, and remain so, may go down to Hades violently in one single day. They will leave our government completely secure and untroubled hereafter.”

Interesting enough, Jews are not specifically mentioned in this decree at all, since this would be the obvious place to indicate who these people are. There is just this vague foreign “all these people,” who must be destroyed. Haman was the 2nd in command and in charge of this affair. He wanted all these people, including wives and children, destroyed by the sword without pity or restraint on the 14th day of the 12th month. Thus they will go violently down to Hades. They will leave the Persian government secure and untroubled. Notice that they are going to go down to Hades, who was the Greek god of the underworld, once again indicating a later Greek influence. Hades as a term is found in the Christian New Testament and not in the Hebrew Jewish Old Testament. This was the final section of this Greek text of the decree.