Parmashta was one of the ten sons of Haman, the Agagite, who was an enemy of the Jewish people in the Persian Empire. He was killed along with his brothers when the Jews defended themselves against their enemies following King Ahasuerus' decree, and his name was hung on the gallows together with the other sons.
1After these events King Ahasuerus promoted Haman son of Hammedatha the Agagite, advancing him and setting his seat above all the officials who were with him.
2All the king's servants at the King's Gate knelt and bowed down to Haman, for the king had so commanded concerning him. But Mordecai would not kneel or bow down.
4Day after day they spoke to him, but he would not listen to them. So they reported it to Haman, to see whether Mordecai's words would stand, for he had told them that he was a Jew.
6Yet he thought it beneath him to lay hands on Mordecai alone, for they had told him who Mordecai's people were. So Haman sought to destroy all the Jews, the people of Mordecai, throughout the whole kingdom of Ahasuerus.
7In the first month, the month of Nisan, in the twelfth year of King Ahasuerus, they cast the pur—that is, the lot—before Haman, from day to day and from month to month, and the lot fell on the twelfth month, the month of Adar.
8Then Haman said to King Ahasuerus, "There is a certain people scattered and dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom. Their laws differ from those of every other people, and they do not keep the king's laws, so it is not in the king's interest to tolerate them.
9If it pleases the king, let an order be written that they be destroyed, and I will weigh out ten thousand talents of silver into the hands of those who administer the king's affairs, to be brought into the royal treasury."
12On the thirteenth day of the first month the king's scribes were summoned, and everything Haman commanded was written to the king's satraps, to the governors over each province, and to the officials of each people—to every province in its own script and to every people in its own language. It was written in the name of King Ahasuerus and sealed with the king's signet ring.
13Letters were sent by couriers to all the king's provinces, ordering that all the Jews—young and old, women and children—be destroyed, killed, and annihilated in a single day, the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, the month of Adar, and their possessions plundered.
2And again on this second day, as they drank their wine, the king said to Esther, "What is your petition, Queen Esther? It shall be granted you. What is your request? Up to half the kingdom, and it shall be done."
3Queen Esther answered, "If I have found favor in your eyes, O king, and if it pleases the king, let my life be granted me as my petition, and my people as my request.
4For we have been sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, killed, and annihilated. If we had merely been sold as slaves and servant girls, I would have kept silent, for such trouble would not be worth disturbing the king."
7In his fury the king rose from the wine banquet and went out into the palace garden, while Haman stayed behind to beg Queen Esther for his life, for he saw that the king had already determined his ruin.
8When the king returned from the palace garden to the banquet hall, Haman had thrown himself on the couch where Esther was reclining. The king exclaimed, "Will he even assault the queen while she is with me in my own house?" As the words left the king's mouth, they covered Haman's face.
9Then Harbona, one of the eunuchs attending the king, said, "Look, the gallows Haman made for Mordecai, who spoke up for the king's good, is standing at Haman's house, fifty cubits high."[fn] The king said, "Hang him on it."
13Esther answered, "If it pleases the king, let the Jews in Susa be allowed to act tomorrow as well, according to today's decree, and let Haman's ten sons be hanged on the gallows."
The victory over Haman and his sons, including Parmashta, became the basis for the annual feast of Purim, which Jews celebrate to commemorate their deliverance.
22as the days on which the Jews gained relief from their enemies, and as the month in which their sorrow was turned into gladness and their mourning into a holiday. They were to keep them as days of feasting and gladness, sending portions of food to one another and gifts to the poor.
24For Haman son of Hammedatha the Agagite, the enemy of all the Jews, had plotted against the Jews to destroy them, and had cast the pur—that is, the lot—to crush and destroy them.
25But when Esther came before the king, he ordered in writing that the evil scheme Haman had devised against the Jews should fall back on his own head, and that he and his sons should be hanged on the gallows.
26Therefore these days are called Purim, after the name Pur. And so, because of everything written in this letter, and because of what they had seen and what had happened to them,
27the Jews established and took upon themselves and their descendants and all who joined them that they would never fail to observe these two days as prescribed and at the appointed time, year after year.
28These days are remembered and kept in every generation, in every family, in every province and every city, and these days of Purim will never cease among the Jews, nor will their memory die out among their descendants.