Esther 4:1-4

Leeser(i) 1 When Mordecai ascertained all that had been done, Mordecai rent his clothes, and put on sackcloth strewed with ashes, and went out into the midst of the city, and cried with a loud and bitter cry; 2 And thus he came up to the front of the king’s gate; for none dared to enter into the king’s gate clothed with sackcloth. 3 And in each and every province, in every place whither the king’s decree and his law had reached, there was great mourning for the Jews, with fasting and weeping and wailing; and a sackcloth strewed with ashes became the bed of the great. 4 Then came the maidens of Esther with her chamberlains and told it her; and the queen was exceedingly terrified; and she sent garments to clothe Mordecai, and to remove his sackcloth from him, but he accepted them not.