Esther 4

• 1. When Mordecai learned what had been done, he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and ashes, and went out into the city, crying with a loud and bitter wail.
• 2. He stood outside the gate of the palace, for no one was allowed to enter while wearing clothes of mourning.
• 3. And as news of the king's decree reached all the provinces, there was great mourning among the Jews. They fasted, wept, and wailed, and many people lay in sackcloth and ashes.
• 4. When Queen Esther's maids and eunuchs came and told her about Mordecai, she was deeply distressed. She sent clothing to him to replace the sackcloth, but he refused it.
• 5. Then Esther sent for Hathach, one of the king's eunuchs who had been appointed as her attendant. She ordered him to go to Mordecai and find out what was troubling him and why he was in mourning.
• 6. So Hathach went out to Mordecai in the square in front of the palace gate.
• 7. Mordecai told him the whole story and told him how much money Haman had promised to pay into the royal treasury for the destruction of the Jews.
• 8. Mordecai gave Hathach a copy of the decree issued in Susa that called for the death of all Jews, and he asked Hathach to show it to Esther. He also asked Hathach to explain it to her and to urge her to go to the king to beg for mercy and plead for her people.
• 9. So Hathach returned to Esther with Mordecai's message.
• 10. Then Esther told Hathach to go back and relay this message to Mordecai:
• 11. "The whole world knows that anyone who appears before the king in his inner court without being invited is doomed to die unless the king holds out his gold scepter. And the king has not called for me to come to him in more than a month."
• 12. So Hathach gave Esther's message to Mordecai.
• 13. Mordecai sent back this reply to Esther: "Don't think for a moment that you will escape there in the palace when all other Jews are killed.
• 14. If you keep quiet at a time like this, deliverance for the Jews will arise from some other place, but you and your relatives will die. What's more, who can say but that you have been elevated to the palace for just such a time as this?"
• 15. Then Esther sent this reply to Mordecai:
• 16. "Go and gather together all the Jews of Susa and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. My maids and I will do the same. And then, though it is against the law, I will go in to see the king. If I must die, I am willing to die."
• 17. So Mordecai went away and did as Esther told him.

Esther 5

• 1. Three days later, Esther put on her royal robes and entered the inner court of the palace, just across from the king's hall. The king was sitting on his royal throne, facing the entrance.
• 2. When he saw Queen Esther standing there in the inner court, he welcomed her, holding out the gold scepter to her. So Esther approached and touched its tip.
• 3. Then the king asked her, "What do you want, Queen Esther? What is your request? I will give it to you, even if it is half the kingdom!"
• 4. And Esther replied, "If it please Your Majesty, let the king and Haman come today to a banquet I have prepared for the king."
• 5. The king turned to his attendants and said, "Tell Haman to come quickly to a banquet, as Esther has requested." So the king and Haman went to Esther's banquet.
• 6. And while they were drinking wine, the king said to Esther, "Now tell me what you really want. What is your request? I will give it to you, even if it is half the kingdom!"
• 7. Esther replied, "This is my request and deepest wish.
• 8. If Your Majesty is pleased with me and wants to grant my request, please come with Haman tomorrow to the banquet I will prepare for you. Then tomorrow I will explain what this is all about."
• 9. What a happy man Haman was as he left the banquet! But when he saw Mordecai sitting at the gate, not standing up or trembling nervously before him, he was furious.
• 10. However, he restrained himself and went on home. Then he gathered together his friends and Zeresh, his wife,
• 11. and boasted to them about his great wealth and his many children. He bragged about the honors the king had given him and how he had been promoted over all the other officials and leaders.
• 12. Then Haman added, "And that's not all! Queen Esther invited only me and the king himself to the banquet she prepared for us. And she has invited me to dine with her and the king again tomorrow!"
• 13. Then he added, "But all this is meaningless as long as I see Mordecai the Jew just sitting there at the palace gate."
• 14. So Haman's wife, Zeresh, and all his friends suggested, "Set up a gallows that stands seventy-five feet tall, and in the morning ask the king to hang Mordecai on it. When this is done, you can go on your merry way to the banquet with the king." This pleased Haman immensely, and he ordered the gallows set up.

Esther 6

• 1. That night the king had trouble sleeping, so he ordered an attendant to bring the historical records of his kingdom so they could be read to him.
• 2. In those records he discovered an account of how Mordecai had exposed the plot of Bigthana and Teresh, two of the eunuchs who guarded the door to the king's private quarters. They had plotted to assassinate the king.
• 3. "What reward or recognition did we ever give Mordecai for this?" the king asked. His attendants replied, "Nothing has been done."
• 4. "Who is that in the outer court?" the king inquired. Now, as it happened, Haman had just arrived in the outer court of the palace to ask the king to hang Mordecai from the gallows he had prepared.
• 5. So the attendants replied to the king, "Haman is out there.Bring him in," the king ordered.
• 6. So Haman came in, and the king said, "What should I do to honor a man who truly pleases me?" Haman thought to himself, "Whom would the king wish to honor more than me?"
• 7. So he replied, "If the king wishes to honor someone,
• 8. he should bring out one of the king's own royal robes, as well as the king's own horse with a royal emblem on its head.
• 9. Instruct one of the king's most noble princes to dress the man in the king's robe and to lead him through the city square on the king's own horse. Have the prince shout as they go, `This is what happens to those the king wishes to honor!'"
• 10. "Excellent!" the king said to Haman. "Hurry and get the robe and my horse, and do just as you have said for Mordecai the Jew, who sits at the gate of the palace. Do not fail to carry out everything you have suggested."
• 11. So Haman took the robe and put it on Mordecai, placed him on the king's own horse, and led him through the city square, shouting, "This is what happens to those the king wishes to honor!"
• 12. Afterward Mordecai returned to the palace gate, but Haman hurried home dejected and completely humiliated.
• 13. When Haman told his wife, Zeresh, and all his friends what had happened, they said, "Since Mordecai--this man who has humiliated you--is a Jew, you will never succeed in your plans against him. It will be fatal to continue to oppose him."
• 14. While they were still talking, the king's eunuchs arrived to take Haman to the banquet Esther had prepared.

New Living Translation: 150 of 324 days.