¹² Then Mordecai returned to the gate of the king, and Haman rushed to his house mournful and with his head covered. ¹³ And Haman told Zeresh his wife and all his friends all that had happened to him. And his advisers and Zeresh his wife said to him, “If Mordecai, before whom you have begun to fall, is from the descendants of the Jews,^[a] you will not prevail against him, but will certainly fall before him.” ¹⁴ As they were still speaking with him the king’s eunuchs arrived and hurried to bring Haman to the banquet that Esther had prepared.