rn the abundance they have
against those that are the authors of it, and suppose they shall lie
concealed from God in that case, and avoid that vengeance which comes
from him. Some of these men, when they have had the management of
affairs committed to them by their friends, and bearing private malice
of their own against some others, by deceiving those that have the
power, persuade them to be angry at such as have done them no harm,
till they are in danger of perishing, and this by laying accusations
and calumnies: nor is this state of things to be discovered by ancient
examples, or such as we have learned by report only, but by some
examples of such impudent attempts under our own eyes; so that it is
not fit to attend any longer to calumnies and accusations, nor to the
persuasions of others, but to determine what any one knows of himself
to have been really done, and to punish what justly deserves it, and to
grant favors to such as are innocent. This hath been the case of Haman,
the son of Ammedatha, by birth an Amalekite, and alien from the blood of
the Persians, who, when he was hospitably entertained by us, and partook
of that kindness which we bear to all men to so great a degree, as to be
called my father, and to be all along worshipped, and to have honor paid
him by all in the second rank after the royal honor due to ourselves,
he could not bear his good fortune, nor govern the magnitude of his
prosperity with sound reason; nay, he made a conspiracy against me
and my life, who gave him his authority, by endeavoring to take away
Mordecai, my benefactor, and my savior, and by basely and treacherously
requiring to have Esther, the partner of my life, and of my dominion,
brought to destruction; for he contrived by this means to deprive me
of my faithful friends, and transfer the government to others: [20] but
since I perceived that these Jews, that were by this pernicious fellow
devoted to destruction, were not wicked men, but conducted their lives
after the best manner, and were men dedicated to the worship of that God
who hath preserved the kingdom to me and to my ancestors, I do not only
free them from the punishment which the former epistle, which was
sent by Haman, ordered to be inflicted on them, to which if you refuse
obedience, you shall do well; but I will that they have all honor paid
to them. Accordingly, I have hanged up the man that contrived such
things against them, with his family, before the gates of