⁶ For how can I bear ^(A)to see the calamity that is coming to my people? Or how can I bear to see the destruction of my kindred?”

^4 (A)For we have been sold, I and my people, ^(B)to be destroyed, to be killed, and to be annihilated. If we had been sold merely as slaves, men and women, I would have been silent, for our affliction is not to be compared with the loss to the king.”

10 Brothers,^[a] my heart's desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved.

² that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. ³ For ^(A)I could wish that I myself were ^(B)accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers,^[a] my kinsmen ^(C)according to the flesh.

Jesus Weeps over Jerusalem

^41 (A)And when he drew near and saw the city, ^(B)he wept over it, ⁴² saying, ^(C)“Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now ^(D)they are hidden from your eyes.

Anguish over Judah's Desolation

The Jews Destroy Their Enemies

9 ^(A)Now in the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar, ^(B)on the thirteenth day of the same, ^(C)when the king's command and edict were about to be carried out, ^(D)on the very day when the enemies of the Jews hoped to gain the mastery over them, the reverse occurred: the Jews gained mastery over those who hated them.

³ I said to the king, ^(A)“Let the king live forever! Why should not my face be sad, ^(B)when the city, the place of my fathers' graves, lies in ruins, and its gates have been destroyed by fire?”