4:1When Mordecai had heard these things, he tore his garments, and was clothed in sackcloth, sprinkling ash on his head: and in the street in the middle of the city he was crying out with a loud voice, showing the bitterness of his soul, and going with this wailing as far as the doors of the palace. 4:2For it was not lawful for one clothed in sackcloth to enter the king's hall. 4:3In all the provinces too, towns, and places, to which the king's cruel decree had come, there was huge lamentation among the Jews, fasting, howling, and weeping, many using sackcloth and ash for a bed. 4:4Now Esther's girls and eunuchs went in, and reported it to her.
4:4Hearing this she was dismayed, and sent a garment, so that, the sackcloth having been taken off, they might clothe him: which he would not accept. 4:5And Hathach the eunuch having been summoned, whom the king had given her as a servant, she instructed him to go to Mordecai, and learn from him why he was doing this. 4:6And Hathach, having gone out, went to Mordecai standing in the street of the city, before the door of the palace: who told him all the things that had happened: how Haman had promised that he would bring silver into the king's treasuries for the slaughter of the Jews. 4:8A copy also of the edict which was hanging in Susa he gave him, so that he might show it to the queen, and warn her to go in to the king and plead with him for her people.
4:9Hathach, having returned, reported to Esther all the things which Mordecai had said. 4:10She answered him, and ordered him to say to Mordecai: "All the king's servants, and all the provinces which are under his rule, know that whether man or woman, uncalled, enters the inner court of the king, without any delay he is immediately put to death: unless perhaps the king has stretched out the golden rod to him as a sign of clemency, and so he may live. 4:11How then shall I be able to go in to the king, I who for thirty days now have not been called to him?" 4:12When Mordecai had heard this, he sent word again to Esther, saying: "Do not think that you will free only your own life, because you are in the king's house above all the Jews: for if you are silent now, the Jews will be freed by another occasion: and you, and your father's house, will perish.
4:14And who knows whether you came to the kingdom for this reason, so that you might be made ready for such a time?" 4:15And again Esther sent these words to Mordecai: "Go, and gather all the Jews whom you find in Susa, and pray for me. 4:16Do not eat and do not drink for three days and three nights: and I with my handmaids will likewise fast, and then I will go in to the king, acting against the law, uncalled, and handing myself over to death and danger." 4:17So Mordecai went, and did all the things which Esther had instructed him.