Esther 4

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1. 1When Mordecai learned about everything that had been done, he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth with ashes, went out into the middle of the city, and cried out with a loud and bitter cry.
2. 2He came even before the king's gate, for none might enter the king's gate clothed in sackcloth.
3. 3And in every province, wherever the king's command and his decree came, there was great mourning among the Jews, and fasting, and weeping, and wailing; and many lay in sackcloth and ashes.
4. 4When Esther's maids and her attendants came and told her, the queen was exceedingly grieved. She sent clothing to clothe Mordecai and to take away his sackcloth from him, but he received it not.
5. 5Then Esther called for Hatach, one of the king's attendants whom he had appointed to attend upon her, and gave him a command to Mordecai, to find out what this was and why it was.
6. 6So Hatach went out to Mordecai in the street of the city, which was before the king's gate.
7. 7And Mordecai told him of all that had happened to him, and of the sum of money that Haman had promised to pay to the king's treasuries for the Jews, to destroy them.
8. 8He also gave him the copy of the writing of the decree that was given at Shushan to destroy them, to show it to Esther and to declare it to her, and to charge her that she should go in to the king, to make supplication to him, and to make request before him for her people.
9. 9And Hatach came and told Esther the words of Mordecai.
10. 10Again Esther spoke to Hatach and gave him a command for Mordecai:
11. 11All the king's servants and the people of the king's provinces know that whoever, whether man or woman, comes to the king into the inner court who is not called, there is one law of his to put him to death, except such to whom the king holds out the golden sceptre, that he may live. But I have not been called to come in to the king these 30 days.
12. 12And they told Mordecai Esther's words.
13. 13Then Mordecai commanded them to answer Esther, "Do not think to yourself that you will escape in the king's house, more than all the Jews.
14. 14For if you altogether hold your peace at this time, then enlargement and deliverance will arise to the Jews from another place, but you and your father's house will be destroyed. And who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?
15. 15Then Esther told them to return this answer to Mordecai:
16. 16"Go, gather together all the Jews who are present in Shushan, and fast for me, and neither eat nor drink three days, night or day. I also and my maids will fast likewise. And so I will go in to the king, which is not according to the law. And if I perish, I perish."
17. 17So Mordecai went his way and did according to all that Esther had commanded him.