| [an error occurred while processing this directive] | New Living Translation |
| 1[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 1When Mordecai learned about all that had been done, he tore his clothes, put on burlap and ashes, and went out into the city, crying with a loud and bitter wail. |
| 2[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 2He went as far as the gate of the palace, for no one was allowed to enter the palace gate while wearing clothes of mourning. |
| 3[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 3And as news of the king’s decree reached all the provinces, there was great mourning among the Jews. They fasted, wept, and wailed, and many people lay in burlap and ashes. |
| 4[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 4When Queen Esther’s maids and eunuchs came and told her about Mordecai, she was deeply distressed. She sent clothing to him to replace the burlap, but he refused it. |
| 5[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 5Then Esther sent for Hathach, one of the king’s eunuchs who had been appointed as her attendant. She ordered him to go to Mordecai and find out what was troubling him and why he was in mourning. |
| 6[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 6So Hathach went out to Mordecai in the square in front of the palace gate. |
| 7[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 7Mordecai told him the whole story, including the exact amount of money Haman had promised to pay into the royal treasury for the destruction of the Jews. |
| 8[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 8Mordecai gave Hathach a copy of the decree issued in Susa that called for the death of all Jews. He asked Hathach to show it to Esther and explain the situation to her. He also asked Hathach to direct her to go to the king to beg for mercy and plead for her people. |
| 9[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 9So Hathach returned to Esther with Mordecai’s message. |
| 10[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 10Then Esther told Hathach to go back and relay this message to Mordecai: |
| 11[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 11“All the king’s officials and even the people in the provinces know that anyone who appears before the king in his inner court without being invited is doomed to die unless the king holds out his gold scepter. And the king has not called for me to come to him for thirty days.” |
| 12[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 12So Hathach gave Esther’s message to Mordecai. |
| 13[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 13Mordecai sent this reply to Esther: “Don’t think for a moment that because you’re in the palace you will escape when all other Jews are killed. |
| 14[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 14If you keep quiet at a time like this, deliverance and relief for the Jews will arise from some other place, but you and your relatives will die. Who knows if perhaps you were made queen for just such a time as this?” |
| 15[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 15Then Esther sent this reply to Mordecai: |
| 16[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 16“Go and gather together all the Jews of Susa and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. My maids and I will do the same. And then, though it is against the law, I will go in to see the king. If I must die, I must die.” |
| 17[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 17So Mordecai went away and did everything as Esther had ordered him. |
| [an error occurred while processing this directive] | Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved. |
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