¹Now when Mordecai found out all that was done , Mordecai tore his clothes and put on sackcloth with ashes, and went out into the middle of the city , and wailed loudly and bitterly .

²He came even before the king ’s gate , for no one is allowed inside the king ’s gate clothed with sackcloth .

³In every province , wherever the king ’s commandment and his decree came , there was great mourning amongst the Jews , and fasting , and weeping , and wailing ; and many lay in sackcloth and ashes.

⁴Esther’s maidens and her eunuchs came and told her this , and the queen was exceedingly grieved . She sent clothing to Mordecai , to replace his sackcloth , but he didn’t receive it .

⁵Then Esther called for Hathach , one of the king ’s eunuchs , whom he had appointed to attend her , and commanded him to go to Mordecai , to find out what this was , and why it was .

⁶So Hathach went out to Mordecai , to the city square which was before the king ’s gate .

⁷Mordecai told him of all that had happened to him , and the exact sum of the money that Haman had promised to pay to the king ’s treasuries for the destruction of the Jews .

⁸He also gave him the copy of the writing of the decree that was given out in Susa to destroy them , to show it to Esther, and to declare it to her , and to urge her to go in to the king to make supplication to him , and to make request before him for her people .

⁹Hathach came and told Esther the words of Mordecai .

¹⁰Then Esther spoke to Hathach , and gave him a message to Mordecai :

¹¹“All the king ’s servants and the people of the king ’s provinces know that whoever , whether man or woman , comes to the king into the inner court without being called , there is one law for him , that he be put to death , except those to whom the king might hold out the golden sceptre , that he may live . I have not been called to come in to the king these thirty days .”

¹²They told Esther’s words to Mordecai .

¹³Then Mordecai asked them to return this answer to Esther: “Don’t think to yourself that you will escape in the king ’s house any more than all the Jews .

¹⁴For if you remain silent now , then relief and deliverance will come to the Jews from another place , but you and your father’s house will perish. Who knows if you haven’t come to the kingdom for such a time as this ?”

¹⁵Then Esther asked them to answer Mordecai ,

¹⁶“Go , gather together all the Jews who are present in Susa , and fast for me , and neither eat nor drink three days , night or day . I and my maidens will also fast the same way . Then I will go in to the king , which is against the law ; and if I perish, I perish.”

¹⁷So Mordecai went his way , and did according to all that Esther had commanded him .