10:1–3: MORDECAI HONOURED The last verses focus on Mordecai rather than Esther, and recall his great honours, honours that Haman had desired for himself, but which events denied him. But Mordecai is remembered finally not for his power in the kingdom, but for his devotion to his people’s welfare, for whom he ‘interceded’ (10:3). All Mordecai’s achievements are recorded ‘in the annals of the kings of Media and Persia’ (10:2). This phrase, similar to the ‘regnal formulae’ of Kings (e.g. 1 Kgs 14:19,