Esther 4

¹Which things when Mardocheus had heard, he rent his garments, and was clothed with sackcloth, sprinkling ashes on his head: and in the street of the midst of the city he cried with a loud voice, shewing the anguish of his mind,

²and with this wailing going even to the doors of the palace: for it was not lawful for one clothed with sack-cloth to enter the king's court.

³In all Provinces also, towns, and places, to which the king's cruel decree was come, there was great mourning with the Jews, fasting, howling, and weeping, many using sack-cloth and ashes for their couch.

⁴And Esther's maids and the eunuchs went in, & told her. Which she hearing was astonished: & she sent a garment, that the sack-cloth being taken away, they should put it on him: which he would not take.

⁵And calling for Athach the eunuch, whom the king had given her for a servant to Mardocheus, commanded him to go and to learn of him, why he did this.

⁶And Athach going forth went to Mardocheus standing in the street of the city before the palace door:

⁷who told him all things that had chanced, how Aman had promised, that he would bring silver into the king's treasures for the slaughter of the Jews.

⁸He gave him also a copy of the edict which hung in Susan, that he should shew it to the queen, and should admonish her to enter in to the king, and to entreat him for her people.

⁹Athach returning told Esther all things, that Mardocheus had said.

¹⁰Who answered him, and bade that he should say to Mardocheus:

¹¹All the king's servants, and all the Provinces that are under his dominion, know, that whether man, or woman, not called, shall enter in to the king's inner court, he must immediately be slain without all delay: unless perhaps the king stretch forth a golden rod unto him, for a sign of clemency, and so he may live. I therefore how can I enter in to the king, which now these thirty days have not been called unto him?

¹²Which when Mardocheus had heard,

¹³he sent word to Esther again, saying: Think not that thou mayst deliver thy own life only, because thou art in the king's house, above all the Jews:

¹⁴for if thou wilt now hold thy peace, the Jews shall be delivered by another occasion: and thou, and thy father's house shall perish. And who knoweth whether thou camest to the Kingdom therefore, that in such a time thou mightest be ready?

¹⁵And again Esther sent to Mardocheus in these words:

¹⁶Go, and gather together all the Jews, whom thou shalt find in Susan, and pray ye for me. Eat ye not, and drink not in three days, and three nights: and I with my handmaids in like manner will fast, and then will I go in to the king, doing against the law, not called, and delivering myself to death and to peril.

¹⁷Mardocheus therefore went, and did all things that Esther had commanded him.