Esther 7

1The king and Haman came to banquet with Queen Esther.

2The king said again to Esther on the second day at the wine banquet, "What is your petition, Queen Esther? It will be given to you. And what is your request? Even to half the kingdom it will be done."

3Esther the queen answered and said, "If I have found favor in your sight, O king, and if it seems good to the king, let my life be given me at my petition, and my people at my request."

4For I and my people have been sold to destruction, killing, and annihilation, but if we had been sold as slaves and maidservants, I would have stayed silent, since no adversary could offset the king's loss.

5King Ahasuerus said to Esther the queen, "Who is he, this one? And where is he, this one who has filled his heart to do so?"

6Esther said, "A man, an adversary and an enemy—this wicked Haman!" Haman was terrified before the king and the queen.

7The king rose in his fury from the wine banquet and went into the palace garden, while Haman stood to plead for his life with Queen Esther, for he saw that calamity was determined against him by the king.

8The king returned from the palace garden to the wine banquet house, and Haman had fallen on the couch where Esther lay. The king said, "Will he even force the queen with me in the house?" As the word came from the king's mouth, they covered Haman's face.

9Harbonah, one of the king's eunuchs, said, "See, there's also the gallows—fifty cubits high—that Haman made for Mordecai, who spoke well for the king, standing in Haman's house." The king said, "Hang him on it."

10They hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai, and the king's wrath subsided.