Mordecai Appeals to Esther

4 When Mordecai learned all that had occurred,^(A) he tore his clothes,^(B) put on sackcloth and ashes,^(C) went into the middle of the city, and cried loudly and bitterly.^{(D) 2} He went only as far as the King’s Gate,^(E) since the law prohibited anyone wearing sackcloth from entering the King’s Gate. ³ There was great mourning among the Jewish people in every province where the king’s command and edict^(F) reached. They fasted, wept, and lamented, and many lay in sackcloth and ashes.^(G)

¹⁰ Esther spoke to Hathach and commanded him to tell Mordecai, ¹¹ “All the royal officials and the people of the royal provinces know that one law applies to every man or woman who approaches the king in the inner courtyard^(A) and who has not been summoned—the death penalty^(B)—unless the king extends the gold scepter, allowing that person to live.^(C) I have not been summoned to appear before the king^(D) for the last^[a] thirty days.” ¹² Esther’s response was reported to Mordecai.

¹³ Mordecai told the messenger to reply to Esther, “Don’t think that you will escape the fate of all the Jews because you are in the king’s palace. ¹⁴ If you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will come to the Jewish people from another place,^(E) but you and your father’s family will be destroyed. Who knows, perhaps you have come to your royal position for such a time as this.”^(F)

¹⁵ Esther sent this reply to Mordecai: ¹⁶ “Go and assemble all the Jews who can be found in Susa and fast for me. Don’t eat or drink for three days,^(G) night or day. I and my female servants will also fast^(H) in the same way. After that, I will go to the king even if it is against the law.^(I) If I perish, I perish.”^(J)