Esther 4

¹ When Mordecai learned all that had been done, he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and ashes, and went out into the middle of the city, crying out with a loud and bitter cry.

² He went up to the entrance of the king's gate, for no one could enter the king's gate clothed in sackcloth.

³ In every province, wherever the king's command and his decree reached, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting and weeping and lamenting. Many lay in sackcloth and ashes.

⁴ When Esther's young women and her eunuchs came and told her, the queen was deeply distressed. She sent garments to clothe Mordecai so that he might take off his sackcloth, but he would not accept them.

⁵ Then Esther called for Hathak, one of the king's eunuchs who had been appointed to attend her, and ordered him to go to Mordecai to learn what this was and why it was.

⁶ Hathak went out to Mordecai in the open square of the city in front of the king's gate.

⁷ Mordecai told him all that had happened to him, and the exact amount of silver that Haman had promised to pay into the king's treasuries for the destruction of the Jews.

⁸ He also gave him a copy of the written decree issued in Susa for their destruction, that he might show it to Esther and explain it to her, and command her to go to the king to beg his favor and plead with him on behalf of her people.

⁹ Hathak went and told Esther what Mordecai had said.

¹⁰ Then Esther spoke to Hathak and gave him a message for Mordecai:

¹¹ "All the king's servants and the people of the king's provinces know that if any man or woman goes to the king in the inner court without being summoned, there is but one law—that he be put to death—unless the king holds out the golden scepter to him so that he may live. And I have not been summoned to come to the king these thirty days."

¹² When they told Mordecai Esther's words,

¹³ Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, "Do not think to yourself that in the king's palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews.

¹⁴ For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father's house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to your royal position for such a time as this?"

¹⁵ Then Esther told them to reply to Mordecai,

¹⁶ "Go, gather all the Jews to be found in Susa, and fast on my behalf. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my young women will also fast in the same way. Then I will go to the king, though it is against the law, and if I perish, I perish."

¹⁷ So Mordecai went away and did everything as Esther had commanded him.