1When Mordecai learned all that had been done, Mordecai tore his garments and put on sackcloth and ashes, and he went out into the midst of the city and cried out with a loud and bitter cry.
2He came up to the front of the king’s gate, for no one might enter the king’s gate clothed in sackcloth.
3And in every province, wherever the king’s word and his decree reached, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting and weeping and lamentation; sackcloth and ashes were spread out for many.
4When Esther’s young women and her eunuchs came and told her, the queen was greatly distressed. She sent garments to clothe Mordecai and to remove his sackcloth from upon him, but he would not accept them.
5Then Esther summoned Hathach, one of the king’s eunuchs whom he had appointed to attend her, and she commanded him concerning Mordecai, to learn what this was and why it was.
6So Hathach went out to Mordecai, to the city square that was in front of the king’s gate.
7And Mordecai told him all that had happened to him, and the exact sum of the silver that Haman had promised to weigh out into the king’s treasuries in exchange for the Jews, to destroy them.
8He also gave him a copy of the written decree that had been issued in Susa for their destruction, to show it to Esther and to tell her, and to command her to go in to the king to plead with him and to make request before him on behalf of her people.
9So Hathach came and told Esther the words of Mordecai.
10Then Esther spoke to Hathach and commanded him to go to Mordecai:
11“All the king’s servants and the people of the king’s provinces know that for any man or woman who goes to the king, into the inner court, without being summoned, there is one law: to be put to death — except the one to whom the king extends the golden scepter, so that he may live. And I myself have not been summoned to come to the king these thirty days.”
12And they told Mordecai the words of Esther.
13Then Mordecai said to reply to Esther: “Do not imagine in your soul that you, of all the Jews, will escape in the king’s house.
14For if you keep utterly silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether it was for a time like this that you attained to royalty?”
15Then Esther said to reply to Mordecai:
16“Go, gather all the Jews who are found in Susa, and fast for me: do not eat or drink for three days, night and day. I too, with my young women, will fast in the same way. Then I will go to the king, though it is against the law; and if I perish, I perish.”
17So Mordecai went away and did according to all that Esther had commanded him.
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