Esther 10

1 King Ahasuerus imposed a tribute on the land and the coasts.

King Xerxes required that all the people in his empire pay taxes. Even the people who lived on the islands [in the Mediterranean Sea] (OR, in coastal areas) were required to pay taxes.

2 All the acts of his power and of his might, and the full account of the greatness of Mordecai to which the king advanced him, are they not recorded in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Media and Persia?

And all the great and powerful things that Xerxes did were written in the scroll called/entitled ‘The record of the things done by the kings of Media and Persia’. In this book were also written [the things done] by Mordecai, the man whom the king had greatly honored.

3 For Mordecai the Jew was next in rank to King Ahasuerus, and great among the Jews, and loved by them all. He sought the good of his people and promoted the welfare of their descendants.

Mordecai, who was a Jew, became the king’s most important official, and [all] the Jews also considered him to be a very great man. They [all] respected him, because he did many good things for the Jews, and he often asked [the king] to do good things for them.