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The Blue Letter Bible

Esther 4 :: English Standard Version (ESV)

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Esther Agrees to Help the Jews

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Unchecked Copy Box Est 4:1

Unchecked Copy BoxEst 4:1 - When Mordecai learned all that had been done, Mordecai tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and ashes, and went out into the midst of the city, and he cried out with a loud and bitter cry.

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Unchecked Copy Box Est 4:2

Unchecked Copy BoxEst 4:2 - He went up to the entrance of the king’s gate, for no one was allowed to enter the king’s gate clothed in sackcloth.

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Unchecked Copy Box Est 4:3

Unchecked Copy BoxEst 4:3 - And in every province, wherever the king’s command and his decree reached, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting and weeping and lamenting, and many of them lay in sackcloth and ashes.

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Unchecked Copy Box Est 4:4

Unchecked Copy BoxEst 4:4 - When Esther’s young women and her eunuchs came and told her, the queen was deeply distressed. She sent garments to clothe Mordecai, so that he might take off his sackcloth, but he would not accept them.

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Unchecked Copy Box Est 4:5

Unchecked Copy BoxEst 4:5 - Then Esther called for Hathach, one of the king’s eunuchs, who had been appointed to attend her, and ordered him to go to Mordecai to learn what this was and why it was.

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Unchecked Copy Box Est 4:6

Unchecked Copy BoxEst 4:6 - Hathach went out to Mordecai in the open square of the city in front of the king’s gate,

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Unchecked Copy Box Est 4:7

Unchecked Copy BoxEst 4:7 - and Mordecai told him all that had happened to him, and the exact sum of money that Haman had promised to pay into the king’s treasuries for the destruction of the Jews.

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Unchecked Copy Box Est 4:8

Unchecked Copy BoxEst 4:8 - Mordecai also gave him a copy of the written decree issued in Susa for their destruction,[fn] that he might show it to Esther and explain it to her and command her to go to the king to beg his favor and plead with him[fn] on behalf of her people.

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Unchecked Copy Box Est 4:9

Unchecked Copy BoxEst 4:9 - And Hathach went and told Esther what Mordecai had said.

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Unchecked Copy Box Est 4:10

Unchecked Copy BoxEst 4:10 - Then Esther spoke to Hathach and commanded him to go to Mordecai and say,

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Unchecked Copy Box Est 4:11

Unchecked Copy BoxEst 4:11 - “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—to be put to death, except the one to whom the king holds out the golden scepter so that he may live. But as for me, I have not been called to come in to the king these thirty days.”

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Unchecked Copy Box Est 4:12

Unchecked Copy BoxEst 4:12 - And they told Mordecai what Esther had said.

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Unchecked Copy Box Est 4:13

Unchecked Copy BoxEst 4:13 - Then Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, “Do not think to yourself that in the king’s palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews.

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Unchecked Copy Box Est 4:14

Unchecked Copy BoxEst 4:14 - For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”

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Unchecked Copy Box Est 4:15

Unchecked Copy BoxEst 4:15 - Then Esther told them to reply to Mordecai,

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Unchecked Copy Box Est 4:16

Unchecked Copy BoxEst 4:16 - “Go, gather all the Jews to be found in Susa, and hold a fast on my behalf, and do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my young women will also fast as you do. Then I will go to the king, though it is against the law, and if I perish, I perish.”[fn]

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Unchecked Copy Box Est 4:17

Unchecked Copy BoxEst 4:17 - Mordecai then went away and did everything as Esther had ordered him.
See the ESV Preface (Especially for Parenthesis, Brackets, & Asterisks).
ESV Footnotes
Or annihilation
Hebrew and seek from before his face
Hebrew if I am destroyed, then I will be destroyed
ESV

The Holy Bible, English Standard Version copyright © 2001, 2007, 2011, 2016 by Crossway Books and Bibles, a Publishing Ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

See detailed copyright information.

For more information on this translation, see the ESV Preface.

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Esther Chapter 4 — Additional Translations:

King James Version New King James Version New Living Translation New International Version Christian Standard Bible New American Standard Bible 2020 New American Standard Bible 1995 Legacy Standard Bible Amplified Bible New English Translation Revised Standard Version American Standard Version Young's Literal Translation Darby Translation Webster's Bible Hebrew Names Version Latin Vulgate Westminster Leningrad Codex Septuagint Smith Van Dyck Arabic Bible Open New Arabic Version Brenton's English Septuagint Reina Valera 1909 Reina-Valera 1960 Bible in Basic English Chinese Traditional Union Espanol Moderno Korean Holy Bible Louis Segond German Luther Russian Synodal Translation Sagradas Escrituras