³ Then Queen Esther answered, ^(A)“If I have found favor in your sight, O king, and if it please the king, let my life be granted me for my wish, and my people for my request. ^4 (B)For we have been sold, I and my people, ^(C)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.”