1Ā Now 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. 2Ā He came even before the kingās gate, for no one is allowed inside the kingās gate clothed with sackcloth. 3Ā In every province, wherever the kingās 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.
4Ā Estherās 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 didnāt receive it. 5Ā Then Esther called for Hathach, one of the kingās 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. 6Ā So Hathach went out to Mordecai, to the city square which was before the kingās gate. 7Ā Mordecai told him of all that had happened to him, and the exact sum of the money that Haman had promised to pay to the kingās treasuries for the destruction of the Jews. 8Ā He 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.
9Ā Hathach came and told Esther the words of Mordecai. 10Ā Then Esther spoke to Hathach, and gave him a message to Mordecai: 11Ā āAll the kingās servants and the people of the kingās 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.ā
12Ā They told Estherās words to Mordecai. 13Ā Then Mordecai asked them to return this answer to Esther: āDonāt think to yourself that you will escape in the kingās house any more than all the Jews. 14Ā For if you remain silent now, then relief and deliverance will come to the Jews from another place, but you and your fatherās house will perish. Who knows if you havenāt come to the kingdom for such a time as this?ā
15Ā Then Esther asked them to answer Mordecai, 16Ā āGo, 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.ā 17Ā So Mordecai went his way, and did according to all that Esther had commanded him.