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2 On the second day of the banquet of wine the king asked Esther, |What is your request, Queen Esther? It shall be granted to you. And what is your petition? Ask up to half the kingdom, and it shall be done!| 3 Queen Esther replied, |If I have met with your approval, O king, and if the king is so inclined, grant me my life as my request, and my people as my petition. 4 For we have been sold--both I and my people--to destruction and to slaughter and to annihilation! If we had simply been sold as male and female slaves, I would have remained silent, for such distress would not have been sufficient for troubling the king.| Esther 7:2-4, New English Translation. Copyright © 1996-2017 by Biblical Studies Press.
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