Today is the 18th day of August.

Welcome back to the Global Camp Fire.

I am Brian.

Welcome back to the Daily Audio Bible.

It is, man, it is, it is a joy to be here with you again today.

Grateful to experience the 20th, August 18th, together,

and to move into some new territory for the 20th time.

A favorite.

A favorite, generally speaking, such a beautiful story.

So we concluded the book of Nehemiah yesterday.

But we're still kind of working our way through the different stories from exile.

And if we remember, exile came about for the northern tribes when the Assyrian Empire carried them away

and for the southern kingdom of Judah Babylon conquered and carried them away and so ancient Israel as we knew it

and Israel with 12 tribes and a king has been kind of destroyed and

blown apart completely. So we have been working through some stories from the exile,

and that brings us to an important one, the book of Esther.

And even though this is a short book, it is absolutely cinematic in its drama and intrigue.

Esther tells us of a young Hebrew girl.

Her name is Hadassah, and she's orphaned in exile in Persia, and she's taken in and raised

as a daughter by her cousin,

and his name is Mordecai,

and he was of the tribe of Benjamin.

...