Media

The two-horned ram that you saw represents the kings of Media and Persia.

In the third year of his reign, Xerxes held a feast for all his officials and servants. The military leaders of Persia and Media were there, along with the nobles and princes of the provinces.

His closest advisors were Carshena, Shethar, Admatha, Tarshish, Meres, Marsena, and Memucan, the seven princes of Persia and Media who had personal access to the king and ranked highest in the kingdom.

This very day the noble women of Persia and Media who have heard about the queen’s conduct will say the same thing to all the king’s officials, resulting in much contempt and wrath.

And all of Mordecai’s powerful and magnificent accomplishments, together with the full account of the greatness to which the king had raised him, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Media and Persia?

² And a scroll was found in the fortress of Ecbatana, in the province of Media, with the following written on it: Memorandum:

³ In the first year of King Cyrus, he issued a decree concerning the house of God in Jerusalem: Let the house be rebuilt as a place for offering sacrifices, and let its foundations be firmly laid. It is to be sixty cubits high and sixty cubits wide,

A dire vision is declared to me: “The traitor still betrays, and the destroyer still destroys. Go up, O Elam! Lay siege, O Media! I will put an end to all her groaning.”

²³ Dedan, Tema, Buz, and all who cut the corners of their hair;

²⁴ all the kings of Arabia, and all the kings of the mixed tribes who dwell in the desert;

²⁵ all the kings of Zimri, Elam, and Media;

²⁶ all the kings of the north, both near and far, one after another—all the kingdoms on the face of the earth. And after all of them, the king of Sheshach will drink it too.