Esther 11

¹ In the fourth year of the reign of Ptolemy and Cleopatra, Dositheus, who said that he was a priest and a Levite, and Ptolemy his son brought to Egypt the preceding Letter of Purim, which they said was genuine and had been translated by Lysimachus the son of Ptolemy, one of the residents of Jerusalem.

² In the second year of the reign of Artaxerxes the Great, on the first day of Nisan, Mordecai the son of Jair, son of Shimei, son of Kish, of the tribe of Benjamin, had a dream.

³ He was a Jew, dwelling in the city of Susa, a great man, serving in the court of the king.

⁴ He was one of the captives whom Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had brought from Jerusalem with Jeconiah king of Judea. And this was his dream:

⁵ Behold, noise and confusion, thunders and earthquake, tumult upon the earth!

⁶ And behold, two great dragons came forward, both ready to fight, and they roared terribly.

⁷ And at their roaring every nation prepared for war, to fight against the nation of the righteous.

⁸ And behold, a day of darkness and gloom, tribulation and distress, affliction and great tumult upon the earth!

⁹ And the whole righteous nation was troubled; they feared the evils that threatened them, and were ready to perish.

¹⁰ Then they cried to God; and from their cry, as though from a tiny spring there came a great river, with abundant water;

¹¹ light came, and the sun rose, and the lowly were exalted and consumed those held in honor.

¹² Mordecai saw in his dream what God had determined to do, and after he awoke he had it on his mind and sought all day to understand it in every detail.