4 When Mordekai found out about what had been done, he tore his clothes and dressed in sackcloth and threw ashes over himself (as a sign of mourning or distress) and went out into the city centre, wailing loudly and bitterly. 2 But no one was wearing mourning garb was allowed inside the king’s gate, so when Mordekai reached the gate, he had to stay just outside it. 3 In every province of the empire, the letter that said to destroy the Jews was publicly displayed and when the Jews heard about it, they were incredibly upset. They skipped meals and wailed loudly, and many of them also wore sackcloth and threw ashes on themselves and lay on the ground.

4 When Queen Esther’s young female attendants came with her guardians and told her what was going on outside, even the queen became very scared. She sent Mordekai some good clothes to wear instead of the sackcloth, but he wouldn’t accept them. 5 The king had assigned some of the royal guardians to Esther personally, so Esther called for one of them—a man named Hathak. She told him to go out and speak with Mordekai and find out what he was so distressed about. 6 So Hathak went out to talk to Mordekai who was out in the plaza in front of the king’s gate. 7 Mordekai told him everything that Haman was planning to do and even told him how much money Haman had said the king would get for his treasuries if the king commanded people to kill all the Jews. 8 Mordekai also gave Hathak a copy of the letter that the announcers had read out loud in Shushan, that said that people must kill all the Jews. He told Hathak to show the letter to Esther so that she would know exactly what it said and also told him to urge her to go to the king personally and to beg him desperately to save her people from destruction. 9 So Hathak returned to the queen and told her what Mordekai had said, 10 and Esther told him to go back to Mordekai with this message: 11 “There’s a law about going to the king that applies to everyone in the kingdom, both men and women. If anyone goes into the inner courtyard of the palace, where the king can see them, and the king has not summoned them, that person will be executed. Only if the king holds out his golden scepter to them, then they will live. (Everyone in the whole empire knows this law.) The king hasn’t called for me in over a month, and if I go in without being summoned, I could be put to death.”

12 So Hathak went back to Mordekai and told him what the queen had said. 13 Mordekai told Hathak to tell this to Esther: “Don’t imagine that just because you live there in the king’s palace that you’ll be safe when they kill all the other Jews. 14 If you say nothing at all now, someone from some other place will rescue the Jews, but you and your relatives will not survive. Who knows, perhaps it was for a time just like this that God allowed you to become queen?”

15 Then Esther sent this reply to Mordekai: 16 “Go and assemble all the Jews who live here in Shushan, and tell them to fast and pray for my sake—tell them to not eat or drink anything for three days and three nights. My female attendants and I will also fast in the same way. At the end of the three days, I will go in to talk to the king even though it’s against the law. I will do that even if it costs me my life.”

17 So Mordekai went and did everything that Esther had told him to do.