Esther 4

¹Now when Mordecai found out all that was done, Mordecai tore his clothes and put on sackcloth with ashes, and went out into the middle of the city, and wailed loudly and bitterly. ²He came even before the king’s gate, for no one is allowed inside the king’s gate clothed with sackcloth. ³In 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.

⁴Esther’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. ⁵Then 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. ⁶So Hathach went out to Mordecai, to the city square which was before the king’s gate. ⁷Mordecai 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. ⁸He also gave him the copy of the writing of the decree that was given out in Susa 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.

⁹Hathach came and told Esther the words of Mordecai. ¹⁰Then 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.”

¹²They told Esther’s words to Mordecai. ¹³Then Mordecai asked them to return this answer to Esther: “Don’t think to yourself that you will escape in the king’s house any more than all the Jews. ¹⁴For 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?”

¹⁵Then Esther asked them to answer Mordecai, ¹⁶“Go, gather together all the Jews who are present in Susa, 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.” ¹⁷So Mordecai went his way, and did according to all that Esther had commanded him. ¹⁸[He prayed to the Lord, making mention of all the works of the Lord. ¹⁹He said, “Lord God, you are king ruling over all, for all things are in your power, and there is no one who can oppose you in your purpose to save Israel; ²⁰for you have made the sky and the earth and every wonderful thing under the sky. ²¹You are Lord of all, and there is no one who can resist you, Lord. ²²You know all things. You know, Lord, that it is not in insolence, nor arrogance, nor love of glory, that I have done this, to refuse to bow down to the arrogant Haman. ²³For I would gladly have kissed the soles of his feet for the safety of Israel. ²⁴But I have done this that I might not set the glory of man above the glory of God. I will not worship anyone except you, my Lord, and I will not do these things in arrogance. ²⁵And now, O Lord God, the King, the God of Abraham, spare your people, for our enemies are planning our destruction, and they have desired to destroy your ancient inheritance. ²⁶Do not overlook your people, whom you have redeemed for yourself out of the land of Egypt. ²⁷Listen to my prayer. Have mercy on your inheritance and turn our mourning into gladness, that we may live and sing praise to your name, O Lord. Don’t utterly destroy the mouth of those who praise you, O Lord.” ²⁸All Israel cried with all their might, for death was before their eyes. ²⁹And queen Esther took refuge in the Lord, being taken as it were in the agony of death. ³⁰Having taken off her glorious apparel, she put on garments of distress and mourning. Instead of grand perfumes she filled her head with ashes and dung. She greatly humbled her body, and she filled every place of her glad adorning with her tangled hair. ³¹She implored the Lord God of Israel, and said, “O my Lord, you alone are our king. Help me. I am destitute, and have no helper but you, ³²for my danger is near at hand. ³³I have heard from my birth in the tribe of my kindred that you, Lord, took Israel out of all the nations, and our fathers out of all their kindred for a perpetual inheritance, and have done for them all that you have said. ³⁴And now we have sinned before you, and you have delivered us into the hands of our enemies, ³⁵because we honored their gods. You are righteous, O Lord. ³⁶But now they have not been content with the bitterness of our slavery, but have laid their hands on the hands of their idols ³⁷to abolish the decree of your mouth, and utterly to destroy your inheritance, and to stop the mouth of those who praise you, and to extinguish the glory of your house and your altar, ³⁸and to open the mouth of the Gentiles to speak the praises of vanities, and that a mortal king should be admired forever. ³⁹O Lord, don’t surrender your sceptre to those who don’t exist, and don’t let them laugh at our fall, but turn their counsel against themselves, and make an example of him who has begun to injure us. ⁴⁰Remember us, O Lord! Manifest yourself in the time of our affliction. Encourage me, O King of gods, and ruler of all dominion! ⁴¹Put harmonious speech into my mouth before the lion, and turn his heart to hate him who fights against us, to the utter destruction of those who agree with him. ⁴²But deliver us by your hand, and help me who am alone and have no one but you, O Lord. ⁴³You know all things, and know that I hate the glory of transgressors, and that I abhor the bed of the uncircumcised and of every stranger. ⁴⁴You know my necessity, for I abhor the symbol of my proud station, which is upon my head in the days of my splendor. I abhor it as a menstruous cloth, and I don’t wear it in the days of my tranquility. ⁴⁵Your handmaid has not eaten at Haman’s table, and I have not honored the banquet of the king, neither have I drunk wine of libations. ⁴⁶Neither has your handmaid rejoiced since the day of my promotion until now, except in you, O Lord God of Abraham. ⁴⁷O god, who has power over all, listen to the voice of the desperate, and deliver us from the hand of those who devise mischief. Deliver me from my fear.]