Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for the Bible Recap.

Today we finished our 35th book of the Bible.

Yesterday when we left off, Esther had just thrown a feast for King A. and Haman, and

Haman's ego was soaring until he passed

Mordecai who refused to bow to him. Overnight, he built a gallows to hang Mordecai on. By the way,

Hayman's gallows were different than what we traditionally picture. This structure was more like a giant

spike to impale a person on. While Haman's crew is working on the gallows, King A can't fall asleep.

Maybe all the chainsaws outside his window were keeping him awake, or maybe it's God's providence

at work. To combat his insomnia, he asks one of his staff to read him a bedtime story about

everything that's happened since he took office. As they're scrolling

through his time op feed, he realizes that he never thanked that nice man who saved his life.

Oopsie. But that divine oversight from four years ago was leading up to this very moment. Just as it

dawns on the king, Haman walks in bright and early to ask for permission to hang Mordecai. But before he can

get the question out, King A is like, suppose I wanted to honor someone. What's the best way to do that?

Haman pulls out his list of bullet points, all the ways he wants to be honored and is expecting

the king to honor him, of course. When he finishes, King A says, awesome. Go do all those things for Mordecai.

Can you imagine how humiliating this was for Haman? To lead a parade to the center of town on

behalf of Mordecai? Then after the party, Mordecai goes back to work that day, as faithful and

humble as ever. Haman is bummed, but his Uber is already

outside, ready to take him to the palace, so he heads back for round two of dinner with the

king and queen. Once again, the king offers the queen whatever she wants, up to half his kingdom. And that's

when she drops the hammer. She fills him in on what Haman has done to her and her people,

...