Tribute to Xerxes and Mordecai

1Truly, king Artaxerxes made all the land, and all the islands of the sea, tributaries. 2And his strength and his authority, and the dignity and supremacy with which he exalted Mordecai, have been written in the books of the Medes and the Persians, 3and how Mordecai of Jewish birth, was second after king Artaxerxes, and great among the Jews, and acceptable to the people of his brethren, seeking the good of his people, and speaking about things which pertained to peace for their descendents. And Mordecai said, “By God have these things been done. I remember a dream that I saw, which signified these same things, and nothing of this whatsoever has failed to occur. The little fountain which grew into a river, and had turned into light and into the sun, and overflowed into many waters, is Esther, whom the king received as wife and whom he preferred to be queen. But the two dragons are I and Haman. The peoples who gathered together are those who had attempted to erase the name of the Jews. And my people is Israel, who cried out to the Lord, and the Lord brought salvation to his people, and he freed us from all evils, and he created great signs and portents among the nations. And he commanded there to be two lots, one for the people of God and the other for all the nations. And both lots arrived at the day appointed before God, even from that past time, for all peoples. And the Lord remembered his people and had mercy on his inheritance. And these days shall be observed in the month of Adar, on the fourteenth and fifteenth day of the same month, with all zealousness and joy, by the people gathered together into one union, throughout all the generations hereafter of the people of Israel.” In the fourth year of the reigns of Ptolemy and Cleopatra, Dositheus, who was himself a priest and born of the Levites, and Ptolemy his son, brought this epistle of Purim, which they said was a translation by Lysimachus the son of Ptolemy in Jerusalem.