So within three days all the men of Judah and Benjamin assembled in Jerusalem. On the twentieth day of the ninth month, all the people were sitting in the plaza before the House of God, trembling because of this matter and because of the rain.
Some of Bnei-Yisrael and some of the kohanim, the Levites, the singers, the gatekeepers, and the sanctuary servants also came up to Jerusalem in the seventh year of King Artaxerxes.
“Now because of all this, we are making a binding agreement in writing, and the names of our leaders, our Levites and our kohanim are affixing their seals on the document.
Then in the month of Nisan, in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was set before him, I took the wine and gave it to the king. I had not been sad in his presence before.
Moreover, from the day when I was appointed to be the governor in the land of Judah, from the twentieth year to the thirty-second year of King Artaxerxes—twelve years—neither I, nor my relatives have eaten the bread allocated to the governor.
The couriers went out hurriedly with the king’s command and the edict was issued in the palace in Shushan. The king and Haman then sat down to drink. But the city of Shushan was dumbfounded.