⁶ When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.^(A)

⁶ But God gives all the more grace; therefore it says,

⁷ Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.^{(B) 8} Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.^{(C) 9} Lament and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy into dejection. ¹⁰ Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.^(D)

Esther Agrees to Help the Jews

4 When Mordecai learned all that had been done, Mordecai tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and ashes and went through the city, wailing with a loud and bitter cry;^{(A) 2} he went up to the entrance of the king’s gate, for no one might enter the king’s gate clothed with sackcloth. ³ In every province, wherever the king’s command and his decree came, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting and weeping and lamenting, and most of them lay in sackcloth and ashes.^(B)

⁴ When Esther’s maids and her eunuchs came and told her, the queen was deeply distressed; she sent garments to clothe Mordecai, so that he might take off his sackcloth, but he would not accept them.

³ Then I turned to the Lord God to seek an answer by prayer and supplication with fasting and sackcloth and ashes.^(A)

⁸ Job^[a] took a potsherd with which to scrape himself and sat among the ashes.^(A)

Poverty and Riches

⁹ Let the brother or sister of humble means boast in having a high position ¹⁰ and the rich in having been humbled, because the rich will disappear like a flower in the field.^(A)

Woes to Unrepentant Cities

¹³ “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the deeds of power done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes.^(A)

²¹ “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the deeds of power done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.^(A)