⁵ and I answered the king, “If it pleases the king and if your servant has found favor in his sight, let him send me to the city in Judah where my ancestors are buried so that I can rebuild it.”

⁵ “If it pleases the king,” she said, “and if he regards me with favor^(A) and thinks it the right thing to do, and if he is pleased with me, let an order be written overruling the dispatches that Haman son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, devised and wrote to destroy the Jews in all the king’s provinces.

³ Then Queen Esther answered, “If I have found favor^(A) with you, Your Majesty, and if it pleases you, grant me my life—this is my petition. And spare my people—this is my request.

⁸ If the king regards me with favor^(A) and if it pleases the king to grant my petition and fulfill my request, let the king and Haman come tomorrow to the banquet^(B) I will prepare for them. Then I will answer the king’s question.”

¹⁹ “Therefore, if it pleases the king,^(A) let him issue a royal decree and let it be written in the laws of Persia and Media, which cannot be repealed,^(B) that Vashti is never again to enter the presence of King Xerxes. Also let the king give her royal position to someone else who is better than she.

²² Joab fell with his face to the ground to pay him honor, and he blessed the king.^(A) Joab said, “Today your servant knows that he has found favor in your eyes, my lord the king, because the king has granted his servant’s request.”

¹³ “May I continue to find favor in your eyes,^(A) my lord,” she said. “You have put me at ease by speaking kindly to your servant—though I do not have the standing of one of your servants.”