⁹ Hathach went and told Esther what Mordecai had said.¹⁰Then Esther spoke to Hathach and gave him a message for Mordecai, saying,¹¹‘All the king’s servants and the people of the king’s provinces know that if any man or woman goes to the king inside the inner court without being called, there is but one law—all alike are to be put to death. Only if the king holds out the golden sceptre to someone, may that person live. I myself have not been called to come in to the king for thirty days.’¹²When they told Mordecai what Esther had said,¹³Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, ‘Do not think that in the king’s palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews.¹⁴For if you keep silence at such a time as this, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another quarter, but you and your father’s family will perish. Who knows? Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this.’¹⁵Then Esther said in reply to Mordecai,¹⁶‘Go, gather all the Jews to be found in Susa, and hold a fast on my behalf, and neither eat nor drink for three days, night or day. I and my maids will also fast as you do. After that I will go to the king, though it is against the law; and if I perish, I perish.’¹⁷Mordecai then went away and did everything as Esther had ordered him.

⁷¹So the king and Haman went in to feast with Queen Esther.²On the second day, as they were drinking wine, the king again said to Esther, ‘What is your petition, Queen Esther? It shall be granted you. And what is your request? Even to the half of my kingdom, it shall be fulfilled.’³Then Queen Esther answered, ‘If I have won your favour, O king, and if it pleases the king, let my life be given me—that is my petition—and the lives of my people—that is my request.⁴For we have been sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be killed, and to be annihilated. If we had been sold merely as slaves, men and women, I would have held my peace; but no enemy can compensate for this damage to the king.’ ⁵Then King Ahasuerus said to Queen Esther, ‘Who is he, and where is he, who has presumed to do this?’⁶Esther said, ‘A foe and enemy, this wicked Haman!’ Then Haman was terrified before the king and the queen.