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¹ And Mordecai has known all that has been done, and Mordecai tears his garments, and puts on sackcloth and ashes, and goes forth into the midst of the city and cries—a cry loud and bitter,² and he comes to the front of the gate of the king, but none is to come to the gate of the king with a sackcloth-garment.³ And in each and every province, the place where the word of the king, even his law, is coming, the Jews have a great mourning, and fasting, and weeping, and lamenting: sackcloth and ashes are spread for many.⁴ And young women of Esther come in and her eunuchs, and declare [it] to her, and the queen is exceedingly pained, and sends garments to clothe Mordecai, and to turn aside his sackcloth from off him, and he has not received [them].

⁵ And Esther calls to Hatach, of the eunuchs of the king, whom he has stationed before her, and gives him a charge for Mordecai, to know what this [is], and why this [is].⁶ And Hatach goes out to Mordecai, to a broad place of the city, that [is] before the gate of the king,⁷ and Mordecai declares to him all that has met him, and the explanation of the money that Haman said to weigh to the treasuries of the king for the Jews, to destroy them,⁸ and the copy of the writing of the law that had been given in Shushan to destroy them he has given to him, to show Esther, and to declare [it] to her, and to lay a charge on her to go in to the king, to make supplication to him, and to seek from before him, for her people.⁹ And Hatach comes in and declares to Esther the words of Mordecai,¹⁰ and Esther speaks to Hatach, and charges him for Mordecai:¹¹ "All servants of the king, and people of the provinces of the king, know that any man and woman who comes to the king, into the inner court, who is not called—one law of his [is] to put [them] to death, apart from him to whom the king holds out the golden scepter, then he has lived; and I have not been called to come in to the king these thirty days."¹² And they declare to Mordecai the words of Esther,¹³ and Mordecai commands to send back to Esther: "Do not think in your soul to be delivered [in] the house of the king, more than all the Jews,¹⁴ but if you keep entirely silent at this time, respite and deliverance remains to the Jews from another place, and you and the house of your fathers are destroyed; and who knows whether for a time like this you have come to the kingdom?"¹⁵ And Esther commands to send back to Mordecai:¹⁶ "Go, gather all the Jews who are found in Shushan, and fast for me, and do not eat nor drink three days, by night and by day; also I and my young women fast likewise, and so I go in to the king, that [is] not according to law, and when I have perished—I have perished."¹⁷ And Mordecai passes on, and does according to all that Esther has charged on him.