Esther 4 Now when Mordecai knew what was done, he rent his clothes and put on sackcloth and strewed himself with ashes, and running through the street of the city, he cried with a loud voice, A nation is to be cut off, which hath committed no fault.

Thomson⁽ⁱ⁾ ¹ Now when Mordecai knew what was done, he rent his clothes and put on sackcloth and strewed himself with ashes, and running through the street of the city, he cried with a loud voice, A nation is to be cut off, which hath committed no fault. ² But when he came to the king's gate, he stopped; for it was not lawful for him to enter the court in sackcloth and ashes. ³ And in every country where the writings were published there was a cry with lamentation and great grief among the Jews, and they put on sackcloth and ashes. ⁴ When the queen's maids and chamberlains came in and told her, she was troubled at the news, and sent to clothe Mordecai and to take away his sackcloth from him; but he would not be persuaded. ⁵ Then Esther called Achrathaius her chamberlain, who attended her, and sent him to learn from Mordecai an exact state of the matter. ⁶ [Omitted] ⁷ Whereupon Mordecai told him what was done and the promise which Haman had made to the king of ten thousand talents to the royal treasury, that he might destroy the Jews; ⁸ and he gave him a copy of the decree for their destruction, which was published among the Susians to shew it to Esther, and told him that he charged her to go in and supplicate the king and to entreat him for the people, calling to mind the days of thy humiliation when thou wast brought up by my bounty. Seeing Haman who is second to the king, hath spoken against us to destroy us, call thou upon the Lord and speak to the king for us, to deliver us from death. ⁹ Accordingly Achrathaius went in and told her all these words. ¹⁰ Thereupon Esther said to him, Go to Mordecai and tell him, ¹¹ that all the nations of the kingdom know, that no man or woman who shall go to the king into the inner court without being sent for, hath any security for life: he only can be saved to whom the king shall stretch forth the golden sceptre. Now I have not been called to go to the king these thirty days. ¹² When Achrathaius delivered this message of Esther to Mordecai, ¹³ Mordecai said to him, Go say to her, Esther, do not flatter thyself that thou alone of all the Jews in the kingdom shall escape. ¹⁴ Be assured, that if thou neglectest the present opportunity, help and protection will come to the Jews from some other quarter; but thou and thy father's house shall be destroyed. Who knoweth but that for this very occasion thou hast been made queen. ¹⁵ Then Esther sent back the messenger to Mordecai, saying, ¹⁶ Go and assemble the Jews who are at Susoi and fast for me. You must neither eat nor drink for three days; night nor day; and as for me, I and my maids will fast likewise, and then I will go to the king contrary to law, though perhaps I must die. ¹⁷ So Mordecai went and did as Esther commanded him.