1 Now when Mordecai found out all that was done, Mordecai tore his
clothes, and put on sackcloth with ashes, and went out into the midst of the
city, and wailed loudly and a bitterly. 2 He came even before
the king’s gate, for no one is allowed inside the king’s gate clothed with
sackcloth. 3 In every province, wherever the king’s commandment and his
decree came, there was great mourning among the Jews, and fasting, and
weeping, and wailing; and many lay in sackcloth and ashes. 4 Esther’s
maidens and her eunuchs came and told her this, and the queen was
exceedingly grieved. She sent clothing to Mordecai, to replace
his sackcloth; but he didn’t receive it. 5 Then Esther
called for Hathach, one of the king’s eunuchs, whom he had appointed to attend
her, and commanded him to go to Mordecai, to find out what this was, and why it
was. 6 So Hathach went out to Mordecai, to city square
which was before the king’s gate. 7 Mordecai told him of all that had
happened to him, and the exact sum of the money that Haman had promised to
pay to the king’s treasuries for the destruction of the Jews. 8 He also gave
him the copy of the writing of the decree that was given out in Shushan to
destroy them, to show it to Esther, and to declare it to her, and to urge
her to go in to the king, to make supplication to him, and to
make request before him, for her people.
9 Hathach came and told Esther the words of Mordecai. 10 Then Esther
spoke to Hathach, and gave him a
message to Mordecai: 11 “All the king’s servants, and the
people of the king’s provinces, know, that whoever, whether man or woman,
comes to the king into the inner court without being called, there is one
law for him, that he be put to death, except those to whom the king might
hold out the golden scepter, that he may live. I have not been called to
come in to the king these thirty days.”
12 They told to Mordecai
Esther’s
words. 13 Then Mordecai asked them return answer to Esther, “Don’t think to
yourself that you will escape in the king’s house any more than all the Jews.
14 For if you remain silent now, then relief
and deliverance will come to the Jews from another place, but you and your
father’s house will perish. Who knows if you haven’t come to the
kingdom for such a time as this?”
15 Then Esther asked them to answer Mordecai, 16 “Go, gather together all
the Jews who are present in Shushan,
and fast for me, and neither eat nor drink three days, night or day.
I and my maidens will also fast the same way. Then I will go in to the
king, which is against the law; and if I perish, I perish.” 17 So
Mordecai went his way, and did according to all that Esther had commanded
him.
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