Mordecai and the Jews throughout the empire respond to the death sentence with sackcloth, ashes, fasting, weeping, and lamentation.
1 Now when Mordecai found out all that was done, Mordecai tore his clothes, and put on sackcloth with ashes, and went out into the middle of the city, and wailed loudly and bitterly.
2 He came even before the king’s gate, for no one is allowed inside the king’s gate clothed with sackcloth.
3 In every province, wherever the king’s commandment and his decree came, there was great mourning among the Jews, and fasting, and weeping, and wailing; and many lay in sackcloth and ashes.
Esther sends clothing to Mordecai, but his refusal leads her to send Hathak to learn what has happened.
4 Esther’s maidens and her eunuchs came and told her this, and the queen was exceedingly grieved. She sent clothing to Mordecai, to replace his sackcloth; but he didn’t receive it.
5 Then Esther called for Hathach, one of the king’s eunuchs, whom he had appointed to attend her, and commanded him to go to Mordecai, to find out what this was, and why it was.
Mordecai sends evidence of the decree and commands Esther to go before the king to seek mercy for the Jews.
6 So Hathach went out to Mordecai, to city square which was before the king’s gate.
7 Mordecai told him of all that had happened to him, and the exact sum of the money that Haman had promised to pay to the king’s treasuries for the destruction of the Jews.
8 He also gave him the copy of the writing of the decree that was given out in Susa to destroy them, to show it to Esther, and to declare it to her, and to urge her to go in to the king, to make supplication to him, and to make request before him, for her people.
9 Hathach came and told Esther the words of Mordecai.
Esther reminds Mordecai that approaching the king uninvited is punishable by death unless the king extends the golden scepter.
10 Then Esther spoke to Hathach, and gave him a message to Mordecai:
11 “All the king’s servants, and the people of the king’s provinces, know, that whoever, whether man or woman, comes to the king into the inner court without being called, there is one law for him, that he be put to death, except those to whom the king might hold out the golden scepter, that he may live. I have not been called to come in to the king these thirty days.”
12 They told Esther’s words to Mordecai.
Mordecai warns Esther against false security, expresses confidence that deliverance will arise for the Jews, and raises the possibility that her queenship is for this moment.
13 Then Mordecai asked them to return this answer to Esther: “Don’t think to yourself that you will escape in the king’s house any more than all the Jews.
14 For if you remain silent now, then relief and deliverance will come to the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. Who knows if you haven’t come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”
Esther calls the Jews in Susa to fast and resolves to approach the king, accepting the possibility of death.
15 Then Esther asked them to answer Mordecai,
16 “Go, gather together all the Jews who are present in Susa, and fast for me, and neither eat nor drink three days, night or day. I and my maidens will also fast the same way. Then I will go in to the king, which is against the law; and if I perish, I perish.”
17 So Mordecai went his way, and did according to all that Esther had commanded him.