17_EST_04_01 When Mordecai perceived all that was done, Mordecai rent his clothes, and put on sackcloth with ashes, and went out into the midst of the city, and cried with a loud and a bitter cry;
17_EST_04_02 And came even before the king's gate: for none [might] enter into the king's gate clothed with sackcloth.
17_EST_04_03 And in every province, whithersoever 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.
17_EST_04_04 So Esther's maids and her chamberlains came and told [it] her. Then was the queen exceedingly grieved; and she sent raiment to clothe Mordecai, and to take away his sackcloth from him: but he received [it] not.
17_EST_04_05 Then called Esther for Hatach, [one] of the king's chamberlains, whom he had appointed to attend upon her, and gave him a commandment to Mordecai, to know what it [was], and why it [was].
17_EST_04_06 So Hatach went forth to Mordecai unto the street of the city, which [was] before the king's gate.
17_EST_04_07 And Mordecai told him of all that had happened unto him, and of the sum of the money that Haman had promised to pay to the king's treasuries for the Jews, to destroy them.
17_EST_04_08 Also he gave him the copy of the writing of the decree that was given at Shushan to destroy them, to show [it] unto Esther, and to declare [it] unto her, and to charge her that she should go in unto the king, to make supplication unto him, and to make request before him for her people.
17_EST_04_09 And Hatach came and told Esther the words of Mordecai.
17_EST_04_10 Again Esther spake unto Hatach, and gave him commandment unto Mordecai;
17_EST_04_11 All the king's servants, and the people of the king's provinces, do know, that whosoever, whether man or woman, shall come unto the king into the inner court, who is not called, [there is] one law of his to put [him] to death, except such to whom the king shall hold out the golden sceptre, that he may live: but I have not been called to come in unto the king these thirty days.
17_EST_04_12 And they told to Mordecai Esther's words.
17_EST_04_13 Then Mordecai commanded to answer Esther, Think not with thyself that thou shalt escape in the king's house, more than all the Jews.
17_EST_04_14 For if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, [then] shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place; but thou and thy father's house shall be destroyed: and who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for [such] a time as this?
17_EST_04_15 Then Esther bade [them] return Mordecai [this answer],
17_EST_04_16 Go, gather together all the Jews that are present in Shushan, and fast ye for me, and neither eat nor drink three days, night or day: I also and my maidens will fast likewise; and so will I go in unto the king, which [is] not according to the law: and if I perish, I perish.
17_EST_04_17 So Mordecai went his way, and did according to all that Esther had commanded him.