Mordecai Appeals to Esther
And Mordecai knew all that had been done, and Mordecai tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and ashes; and he went out into the middle of the city, and cried out a great and bitter cry.
And he came as far as before the king’s gate, for none might come into the king’s gate clothed in sackcloth.
And in province and province, the place where the word of the king and his law reached, there was great mourning for the Jews, and fasting, and weeping, and lamentation; sackcloth and ashes were spread out for many.
And the young women of Esther and her eunuchs came and told her, and the queen writhed greatly; and she sent clothes to clothe Mordecai and to take his sackcloth from upon him, and he would not receive them.
And Esther called for Hathach, of the king’s eunuchs whom he had set before her, and commanded him concerning Mordecai — to know what this was, and why this was.
And Hathach went out to Mordecai, to the open square of the city that was before the king’s gate.
And Mordecai told him all that had met him, and the exact sum of the silver that Haman had said to weigh out against the Jews, into the king’s treasuries, to destroy them.
And he gave him a copy of the writing of the law that had been given in Susa to wipe them out, to show Esther and to tell her, and to command her to go in to the king, to plead with him and to seek from before him for her people.
And Hathach came and told Esther the words of Mordecai.
And Esther said to Hathach, and commanded him to Mordecai:
“All the king’s servants and the people of the king’s provinces know that any man or woman who goes in to the king, to the inner court, who is not called — there is one law for him: to put him to death — except the one to whom the king holds out the golden scepter, and he lives. And I have not been called to go in to the king these thirty days.”
And they told Mordecai the words of Esther.
And Mordecai said to answer Esther, “Do not imagine in your soul that you will escape in the king’s house more than all the Jews.
For if you keep utterly silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place; and you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether it is for a time like this that you have come to the kingdom?”
And Esther said to answer Mordecai:
“Go, gather all the Jews found in Susa, and fast for me: do not eat and do not drink three days, night and day. I also and my young women will fast in the same way. And so I will go in to the king, which is not according to the law; and if I perish, I perish.”
And Mordecai passed on, and did according to all that Esther had commanded him.