National Confession

9 Now on the twenty-fourth day of this month the people of Israel were assembled with fasting and in sackcloth, and with earth upon their heads. ² And the Israelites separated themselves from all foreigners, and stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers. ³ And they stood up in their place and read from the book of the law of the Lord their God for a fourth of the day; for another fourth of it they made confession and worshiped the Lord their God. ⁴ Upon the stairs of the Levites stood Jeshua, Bani, Kad′mi-el, Shebani′ah, Bunni, Sherebi′ah, Bani, and Chena′ni; and they cried with a loud voice to the Lord their God. ⁵ Then the Levites, Jeshua, Kad′miel, Bani, Hashabnei′ah, Sherebi′ah, Hodi′ah, Shebani′ah, and Pethahi′ah, said, “Stand up and bless the Lord your God from everlasting to everlasting. Blessed be thy glorious name which is exalted above all blessing and praise.”

⁶ And Ezra said:^[a] “Thou art the Lord, thou alone; thou hast made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; and thou preservest all of them; and the host of heaven worships thee. ⁷ Thou art the Lord, the God who didst choose Abram and bring him forth out of Ur of the Chalde′ans and give him the name Abraham; ⁸ and thou didst find his heart faithful before thee, and didst make with him the covenant to give to his descendants the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Per′izzite, the Jeb′usite, and the Gir′gashite; and thou hast fulfilled thy promise, for thou art righteous.

⁹ “And thou didst see the affliction of our fathers in Egypt and hear their cry at the Red Sea, ¹⁰ and didst perform signs and wonders against Pharaoh and all his servants and all the people of his land, for thou knewest that they acted insolently against our fathers; and thou didst get thee a name, as it is to this day. ¹¹ And thou didst divide the sea before them, so that they went through the midst of the sea on dry land; and thou didst cast their pursuers into the depths, as a stone into mighty waters. ¹² By a pillar of cloud thou didst lead them in the day, and by a pillar of fire in the night to light for them the way in which they should go. ¹³ Thou didst come down upon Mount Sinai, and speak with them from heaven and give them right ordinances and true laws, good statutes and commandments, ¹⁴ and thou didst make known to them thy holy sabbath and command them commandments and statutes and a law by Moses thy servant. ¹⁵ Thou didst give them bread from heaven for their hunger and bring forth water for them from the rock for their thirst, and thou didst tell them to go in to possess the land which thou hadst sworn to give them.

¹⁶ “But they and our fathers acted presumptuously and stiffened their neck and did not obey thy commandments; ¹⁷ they refused to obey, and were not mindful of the wonders which thou didst perform among them; but they stiffened their neck and appointed a leader to return to their bondage in Egypt. But thou art a God ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and didst not forsake them. ¹⁸ Even when they had made for themselves a molten calf and said, ‘This is your God who brought you up out of Egypt,’ and had committed great blasphemies, ¹⁹ thou in thy great mercies didst not forsake them in the wilderness; the pillar of cloud which led them in the way did not depart from them by day, nor the pillar of fire by night which lighted for them the way by which they should go. ²⁰ Thou gavest thy good Spirit to instruct them, and didst not withhold thy manna from their mouth, and gavest them water for their thirst. ²¹ Forty years didst thou sustain them in the wilderness, and they lacked nothing; their clothes did not wear out and their feet did not swell. ²² And thou didst give them kingdoms and peoples, and didst allot to them every corner; so they took possession of the land of Sihon king of Heshbon and the land of Og king of Bashan. ²³ Thou didst multiply their descendants as the stars of heaven, and thou didst bring them into the land which thou hadst told their fathers to enter and possess. ²⁴ So the descendants went in and possessed the land, and thou didst subdue before them the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, and didst give them into their hands, with their kings and the peoples of the land, that they might do with them as they would. ²⁵ And they captured fortified cities and a rich land, and took possession of houses full of all good things, cisterns hewn out, vineyards, olive orchards and fruit trees in abundance; so they ate, and were filled and became fat, and delighted themselves in thy great goodness.

²⁶ “Nevertheless they were disobedient and rebelled against thee and cast thy law behind their back and killed thy prophets, who had warned them in order to turn them back to thee, and they committed great blasphemies. ²⁷ Therefore thou didst give them into the hand of their enemies, who made them suffer; and in the time of their suffering they cried to thee and thou didst hear them from heaven; and according to thy great mercies thou didst give them saviors who saved them from the hand of their enemies. ²⁸ But after they had rest they did evil again before thee, and thou didst abandon them to the hand of their enemies, so that they had dominion over them; yet when they turned and cried to thee thou didst hear from heaven, and many times thou didst deliver them according to thy mercies. ²⁹ And thou didst warn them in order to turn them back to thy law. Yet they acted presumptuously and did not obey thy commandments, but sinned against thy ordinances, by the observance of which a man shall live, and turned a stubborn shoulder and stiffened their neck and would not obey. ³⁰ Many years thou didst bear with them, and didst warn them by thy Spirit through thy prophets; yet they would not give ear. Therefore thou didst give them into the hand of the peoples of the lands. ³¹ Nevertheless in thy great mercies thou didst not make an end of them or forsake them; for thou art a gracious and merciful God.

³² “Now therefore, our God, the great and mighty and terrible God, who keepest covenant and steadfast love, let not all the hardship seem little to thee that has come upon us, upon our kings, our princes, our priests, our prophets, our fathers, and all thy people, since the time of the kings of Assyria until this day. ³³ Yet thou hast been just in all that has come upon us, for thou hast dealt faithfully and we have acted wickedly; ³⁴ our kings, our princes, our priests, and our fathers have not kept thy law or heeded thy commandments and thy warnings which thou didst give them. ³⁵ They did not serve thee in their kingdom, and in thy great goodness which thou gavest them, and in the large and rich land which thou didst set before them; and they did not turn from their wicked works. ³⁶ Behold, we are slaves this day; in the land that thou gavest to our fathers to enjoy its fruit and its good gifts, behold, we are slaves. ³⁷ And its rich yield goes to the kings whom thou hast set over us because of our sins; they have power also over our bodies and over our cattle at their pleasure, and we are in great distress.”

Those Who Signed the Covenant

^38 [b] Because of all this we make a firm covenant and write it, and our princes, our Levites, and our priests set their seal to it.

Esther Agrees to Help the Jews

4 When Mor′decai learned all that had been done, Mor′decai rent his clothes and put on sackcloth and ashes, and went out into the midst of the city, wailing with a loud and bitter cry; 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 And 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.

⁴ When Esther’s maids and her eunuchs came and told her, the queen was deeply distressed; she sent garments to clothe Mor′decai, so that he might take off his sackcloth, but he would not accept them. ⁵ Then Esther called for Hathach, one of the king’s eunuchs, who had been appointed to attend her, and ordered him to go to Mor′decai to learn what this was and why it was. ⁶ Hathach went out to Mor′decai in the open square of the city in front of the king’s gate, ⁷ and Mor′decai told him all that had happened to him, and the exact sum of money that Haman had promised to pay into the king’s treasuries for the destruction of the Jews. ⁸ Mor′decai also gave him a copy of the written decree issued in Susa for their destruction, that he might show it to Esther and explain it to her and charge her to go to the king to make supplication to him and entreat him for her people,^[a] “Remembering the days of your lowliness, when you were cared for by me, because Haman, who is next to the king, spoke against us for our destruction. Beseech the Lord and speak to the king concerning us and deliver us from death.” ⁹ And Hathach went and told Esther what Mor′decai had said. ¹⁰ Then Esther spoke to Hathach and gave him a message for Mor′decai, saying, ¹¹ “All the king’s servants and the people of the king’s provinces know that if any man or woman goes to the king inside the inner court without being called, there is but one law; all alike are to be put to death, except the one to whom the king holds out the golden scepter that he may live. And I have not been called to come in to the king these thirty days.” ¹² And they told Mor′decai what Esther had said. ¹³ Then Mor′decai told them to return answer to Esther, “Think not that in the king’s palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. ¹⁴ For if you keep silence at such a time as this, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another quarter, but you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” ¹⁵ Then Esther told them to reply to Mor′decai, ¹⁶ “Go, gather all the Jews to be found in Susa, and hold a fast on my behalf, and neither eat nor drink for three days, night or day. I and my maids will also fast as you do. Then I will go to the king, though it is against the law; and if I perish, I perish.” ¹⁷ Mor′decai then went away and did everything as Esther had ordered him.

Mordecai’s Prayer

13 ⁸ Then Mor′decai^[b] prayed to the Lord, calling to remembrance all the works of the Lord. He said:

⁹ “O Lord, Lord, King who rulest over all things, for the universe is in thy power and there is no one who can oppose thee if it is thy will to save Israel. ¹⁰ For thou hast made heaven and earth and every wonderful thing under heaven, ¹¹ and thou art Lord of all, and there is no one who can resist thee, who art the Lord. ¹² Thou knowest all things; thou knowest, O Lord, that it was not in insolence or pride or for any love of glory that I did this, and refused to bow down to this proud Haman. ¹³ For I would have been willing to kiss the soles of his feet, to save Israel! ¹⁴ But I did this, that I might not set the glory of man above the glory of God, and I will not bow down to any one but to thee, who art my Lord; and I will not do these things in pride. ¹⁵ And now, O Lord God and King, God of Abraham, spare thy people; for the eyes of our foes are upon us^[c] to annihilate us, and they desire to destroy the inheritance that has been thine from the beginning. ¹⁶ Do not neglect thy portion, which thou didst redeem for thyself out of the land of Egypt. ¹⁷ Hear my prayer, and have mercy upon thy inheritance; turn our mourning into feasting, that we may live and sing praise to thy name, O Lord; do not destroy the mouth of those who praise thee.”

¹⁸ And all Israel cried out mightily, for their death was before their eyes.

Esther’s Prayer

14 And Esther the queen, seized with deathly anxiety, fled to the Lord; ² she took off her splendid apparel and put on the garments of distress and mourning, and instead of costly perfumes she covered her head with ashes and dung, and she utterly humbled her body, and every part that she loved to adorn she covered with her tangled hair. ³ And she prayed to the Lord God of Israel, and said:

“O my Lord, thou only art our King; help me, who am alone and have no helper but thee, ⁴ for my danger is in my hand. ⁵ Ever since I was born I have heard in the tribe of my family that thou, O Lord, didst take Israel out of all the nations, and our fathers from among all their ancestors, for an everlasting inheritance, and that thou didst do for them all that thou didst promise. ⁶ And now we have sinned before thee, and thou hast given us into the hands of our enemies, ⁷ because we glorified their gods. Thou art righteous, O Lord! ⁸ And now they are not satisfied that we are in bitter slavery, but they have covenanted with their idols ⁹ to abolish what thy mouth has ordained and to destroy thy inheritance, to stop the mouths of those who praise thee and to quench thy altar and the glory of thy house, ¹⁰ to open the mouths of the nations for the praise of vain idols, and to magnify for ever a mortal king. ¹¹ O Lord, do not surrender thy scepter to what has no being; and do not let them mock at our downfall; but turn their plan against themselves, and make an example of the man who began this against us. ¹² Remember, O Lord; make thyself known in this time of our affliction, and give me courage, O King of the gods and Master of all dominion! ¹³ Put eloquent speech in my mouth before the lion, and turn his heart to hate the man who is fighting against us, so that there may be an end of him and those who agree with him. ¹⁴ But save us by thy hand, and help me, who am alone and have no helper but thee, O Lord. ¹⁵ Thou hast knowledge of all things; and thou knowest that I hate the splendor of the wicked and abhor the bed of the uncircumcised and of any alien. ¹⁶ Thou knowest my necessity—that I abhor the sign of my proud position, which is upon my head on the days when I appear in public. I abhor it like a menstruous rag, and I do not wear it on the days when I am at leisure. ¹⁷ And thy servant has not eaten at Haman’s table, and I have not honored the king’s feast or drunk the wine of the libations. ¹⁸ Thy servant has had no joy since the day that I was brought here until now, except in thee, O Lord God of Abraham. ¹⁹ O God, whose might is over all, hear the voice of the despairing, and save us from the hands of evildoers. And save me from my fear!”