Esther 4

1When Mordecai learned everything that had been done, Mordecai tore his clothes, dressed in sackcloth and ashes, went out into the midst of the city, and cried a loud and bitter cry.

2He came right up to the king's gate, for no one may enter the king's gate while wearing sackcloth.

3In all provinces, wherever the king's word and decree reached, great mourning fell upon the Jews, with fasting, weeping, and lamentation; many lay in sackcloth and ashes.

4Esther's young women and her eunuchs came and informed her, and the queen was deeply troubled. She sent garments to clothe Mordecai and remove his sackcloth from him, but he did not accept them.

5Esther called Hathach, one of the king's eunuchs whom he had appointed to attend her, and commanded him to go to Mordecai to learn what this was and why it was.

6Hathach went out to Mordecai in the city street before the king's gate.

7Mordecai recounted to him all that had come upon him and the full measure of silver that Haman had offered to deposit in the treasuries of the king toward destroying the Jews.

8He also gave him a copy of the written decree issued in Susa to destroy them, to show it to Esther and declare it to her, and to charge her to go to the king to entreat him and plead before him for her people.

9Hatach came and told Esther Mordecai's words.

10Esther spoke to Hatach and commanded him to Mordecai.

11All the king's servants and the people of his provinces know that any man or woman who enters the inner court to the king without being summoned faces one decree of death—except those to whom the king extends the golden scepter, and he lives. I have not been summoned to the king these thirty days.

12They told Mordecai Esther's words.

13Mordecai ordered a reply to Esther: "Do not think within yourself that you will escape in the king's house more than all the Jews."

14For if you remain entirely silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father's house will perish—who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?

15Esther instructed them to return to Mordecai.

16Go, gather all the Jews found in Shushan, and fast for me, neither eating nor drinking for three days, night and day. I and my maidens will fast likewise, and so I will enter to the king, which is not according to the law; and if I perish, I perish.

17Mordecai went on his way and did all that Esther had commanded him.