Esther 4 When Mordecai got knowledge of everything that had been done, Mordecai tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and ashes. Then he went forth into the midst of the city and cried out with a loud and bitter outcry,

CLV⁽ⁱ⁾ ¹ When Mordecai got knowledge of everything that had been done, Mordecai tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and ashes. Then he went forth into the midst of the city and cried out with a loud and bitter outcry, ² until he came before the king's gateway (for no one was to come into the king's gateway in clothing of sackcloth). ³ Also, in every place of the different provinces to which the king's order and his edict were attaining, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting and lamentation and wailing. Sackcloth and ashes became a berth for many. ⁴ When Esther's maidens and her eunuchs came and told her, the queen was in intense mental travail; then she sent clothes for Mordecai to put on and to take off his sackcloth from him; but he was not receptive to her proposal. ⁵ Then Esther called for Hathach, one of the king's eunuchs whom he had assigned to officiate before her, and she gave him instructions about Mordecai, to get knowledge what this meant and what this was all about. ⁶ So Hathach went forth to Mordecai into the city square that was before the king's gateway. ⁷ Then Mordecai told him all that had happened to him, and also about the exact amount of silver that Haman had promised to weigh out for the king's depositories against the Jews, to destroy them. ⁸ He also gave him a transcript of the written text of the edict that had been issued in Susa to have them exterminated. He told him to show it to Esther and to tell her and to enjoin on her to come in to the king and supplicate to him and appeal earnestly before him on behalf of her people. ⁹ When Hathach came back and told Esther Mordecai's words, ¹⁰ then Esther replied to Hathach and gave him instructions for Mordecai: ¹¹ All the king's courtiers and the people of the king's provinces know that for any man or woman coming in to the king into the inner court who was not called, his only edict is to be put to death, aside from the one to whom the king might hold out the golden scepter, he will stay alive. As for me, I have not been called to come in to the king for these past thirty days. ¹² Hathach told Mordecai Esther's words. ¹³ Then Mordecai said to reply to Esther:Do not imagine in your own soul that in the king's house you will escape any more than all the other Jews. ¹⁴ For if you keep silence, yea silence in this crisis, sustentation and rescue shall stand up for the Jews from another place; but you and your father's house, you shall perish. And who is there knowing whether it was for a crisis like this that you have attained to the royal position? ¹⁵ Esther said to reply to Mordecai: ¹⁶ Go, collect together all the Jews who are to be found in Susa, and fast on my behalf. Do not eat and do not drink for three days, night and day. I too with my maidens shall fast likewise. In this way I shall come in to the king, even though it is not according to the edict. And if I should perish, I shall perish. ¹⁷ Then Mordecai passed along and did all just as Esther had enjoined on him.