Chapter by chapter
1Esther 1 moves from a king’s display of imperial wealth to a household dispute turned into an empire-wide decree.2Esther becomes queen with her identity concealed, while Mordecai’s care and discovery of a plot connect them to royal affairs.3Esther 3 traces how Haman’s anger at one man becomes an empire-wide death decree against the Jewish people.4Esther moves from reporting the danger of approaching the king to accepting that danger on behalf of her threatened people.5Esther gains the king’s favor and delays her request, while Haman turns wounded pride into a plan for murder.6A sleepless night brings Mordecai’s forgotten service to light and turns Haman’s plans for honor into his own humiliation.7Esther exposes Haman’s plot, and the man who sought her people’s destruction dies on the gallows he prepared for Mordecai.8Esther’s plea and Mordecai’s decree turn a threatened people’s prospects toward defense and joy, though the appointed day still lies ahead.9Esther 9 records the Jews’ violent deliverance from their enemies and establishes Purim to preserve the memory of their survival.10Esther closes by placing Mordecai’s high rank beside his commitment to the good and peace of his people.
Read Esther with a pen in hand.
Psalmlog builds a reading plan through Esther and turns each day's passage into an entry with one next step.
Nearby books← NehemiahJob →The whole map
Cross-reference data from OpenBible.info (CC BY). Scripture from the World English Bible (public domain). Arc diagram after Chris Harrison and Christoph Römhild (2007).