A Parable for Today (11-17-2020)
There was a certain king who ruled
over a kingdom that included a territory of 50 provinces. In that territory was
a man that had been given significant authority but secretly disrespected the
king and was seeking to become the ultimate ruler of the territory. This man had
many followers and was a traitor in the king’s kingdom.
Now there was another man, a
patriot, in the territory who had found favor with the king and therefore was
given great honor by the king. This patriot refused to bow down to the traitor and
the traitor hated this patriot and made an evil plan to destroy him and all of his
clansmen (fellow patriots) with him.
When the king found out that this
traitor was planning to destroy the patriot, the king turned against the
traitor, took his authority away from him, and used the traitor’s own evil plan
to destroy him.
Now the queen of the kingdom had
great favor with the king and the king gave the queen everything that had
belonged to the traitor. When the king learned that the patriot was related to
the queen, the king gave him all the traitor’s authority. Then the queen put
the patriot in charge of everything that had belonged to the traitor.
Because the traitor’s evil plan to
destroy the patriot’s clan was still in place, the queen went to the king in
great travail requesting that the king stop the traitor’s evil plan. The king
responded to her pleas and the king issued a decree to the effect that the patriot’s
clansmen had the authority to gather together to protect themselves from the
people that had followed the traitor. These clansmen were given the authority
to destroy the people who would attack them and to take away their property.
This was to occur suddenly, in two days, and these days were the 13th
and 14th day of Adar. These
days are called Purim. (Purim begins at sunset on the 13h day of
February in the year 2021.)
As the king issued this decree, he
dressed the patriot in royal clothes of blue and white, with a purple robe of
linen and a large gold crown. Then the people of the king rejoiced and were
filled with joy. In every province of the territory, there was joy and
gladness, and great celebrations. Then many of the people of the land become
clansmen because the fear of the true clansmen fell upon them.
On that appointed day, many of the
nobles and officials of the provinces, helped the patriot’s clansmen, for
everyone was afraid of them for fear of the patriot for he had been promoted
and became more and more powerful. So, on the appointed day, and the next day,
the patriot’s clansmen destroyed their enemies, even hanging the sons of the
traitor, but they did not take any plunder. And on the second day, they
celebrated their victory with a day of feasting and gladness.
Adopted from the book of Esther.
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