Esther
Chapter 4
1 When Mordecai realized everything that had happened, he tore his clothes, dressed in rough fabric with ashes, and went out into the center of the city, crying loudly and bitterly.
2 They came up to the king’s entrance, but no one could go through the king’s entrance wearing sackcloth.
3 In every area where the king’s rule and order went, the Jews mourned deeply, fasted, cried, and wailed; many wore rough cloth and put ashes on themselves.
4 Esther’s servants and attendants came and told her. Then the queen was very sad; she sent clothes to dress Mordecai and to remove his sackcloth from him, but he didn’t accept them.
5 Esther asked Hatach, one of the king’s officials serving her, to go and find out from Mordecai what was happening and why.
6 So Hatach went to Mordecai in the city street in front of the king’s gate.
7 Mordecai explained everything that happened to him and how much money Haman agreed to give to the king’s treasury to kill the Jews.
8 He also gave him the text of the order issued in Shushan to kill them, so he could show it to Esther, tell her about it, and instruct her to plead with the king and ask him to save her people.
9 Hatach came and told Esther what Mordecai said.
10 Again, Esther spoke to Hatach and told him to give a message to Mordecai.
11 All the king’s workers and the people in the king’s lands know that anyone, man or woman, who goes to the king in the inner court without being invited must be put to death. The only way they can be saved is if the king shows them the golden scepter so they can live. But I have not been called to see the king for thirty days.
12 They reported Esther’s words to Mordecai.
13 Mordecai told Esther, “Don’t think you alone will escape from this danger at the palace, more than any other Jews.”
14 If you stay silent now, the Jews will get help and freedom from somewhere else; but you and your family will be destroyed. And who knows if you were made queen for a moment like this?
15 Then Esther told them to give Mordecai this reply.
16 Go, get all the Jews in Shushan to fast for me. Don’t eat or drink for three days, night or day. My maids and I will also fast. Then I’ll go to the king, even though it’s against the law. If I die, I die.
17 Mordecai left and did everything Esther told him to do.