Bible Reading Plan – Day 259

₁When Mordecai learnt of all that had been done, he tore his clothes in anguish. Then he dressed in sackcloth, covered his head with ashes, and walked through the city, wailing loudly and bitterly, ₂until he came to the entrance of the palace. He did not go in because no one wearing sackcloth was allowed inside. ₃Throughout all the provinces, wherever the king's proclamation was made known, there was loud mourning among the Jews. They fasted, wept and wailed, and most of them put on sackcloth and lay in ashes.

₄When Esther's young women and eunuchs told her what Mordecai was doing, she was deeply disturbed. She sent Mordecai some clothes to put on instead of the sackcloth, but he would not accept them. ₅Then she called Hathach, one of the palace eunuchs appointed as her servant by the king, and told him to go to Mordecai and find out what was happening and why. ₆Hathach went to Mordecai in the city square at the entrance of the palace. ₇Mordecai told him everything that had happened to him and just how much money Haman had promised to put into the royal treasury if all the Jews were killed. ₈He gave Hathach a copy of the proclamation that had been issued in Susa, ordering the destruction of the Jews. Mordecai asked him to take it to Esther, explain the situation to her, and ask her to go and plead with the king and beg him to have mercy on her people. ₉Hathach did this, ₁₀and Esther gave him this message to take back to Mordecai: ₁₁“If anyone, man or woman, goes to the inner courtyard and sees the king without being summoned, that person must die. That is the law; everyone, from the king's advisers to the people in the provinces, knows that. There is only one way to get round this law: if the king holds out his gold sceptre to someone, then that person's life is spared. But it has been a month since the king sent for me.”

₁₂When Mordecai received Esther's message, ₁₃he sent her this warning: “Don't imagine that you are safer than any other Jew just because you are in the royal palace. ₁₄If you keep quiet at a time like this, help will come from heaven to the Jews, and they will be saved, but you will die and your father's family will come to an end. Yet who knows — maybe it was for a time like this that you were made queen!”

₁₅Esther sent Mordecai this reply: ₁₆“Go and gather all the Jews in Susa together; hold a fast and pray for me. Don't eat or drink anything for three days and nights. My young women and I will be doing the same. After that, I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. If I must die for doing it, I will die.”

₁₇Mordecai then left and did everything that Esther had told him to do.

₁On the third day of her fast Esther put on her royal robes and went and stood in the inner courtyard of the palace, facing the throne room. The king was inside, seated on the royal throne, facing the entrance. ₂When the king saw Queen Esther standing outside, she won his favour, and he held out to her the gold sceptre. She then came up and touched the tip of it. ₃“What is it, Queen Esther?” the king asked. “Tell me what you want, and you shall have it — even if it is half my empire.”

₄Esther replied, “If it please Your Majesty, I would like you and Haman to be my guests tonight at a banquet I am preparing for you.”

₅The king then ordered Haman to come quickly, so that they could be Esther's guests. So the king and Haman went to Esther's banquet. ₆Over the wine the king asked her, “Tell me what you want, and you shall have it. I will grant your request, even if you ask for half my empire.”

₇Esther replied, ₈“If Your Majesty is kind enough to grant my request, I would like you and Haman to be my guests tomorrow at another banquet that I will prepare for you. At that time I will tell you what I want.”

₉When Haman left the banquet he was happy and in a good mood. But then he saw Mordecai at the entrance of the palace, and when Mordecai did not rise or show any sign of respect as he passed, Haman was furious with him. ₁₀But he controlled himself and went home. Then he invited his friends to his house and asked his wife Zeresh to join them. ₁₁He boasted to them how rich he was, how many sons he had, how the king had promoted him to high office, and how much more important he was than any of the king's other officials. ₁₂“What is more,” Haman went on, “Queen Esther gave a banquet for no one but the king and me, and we are invited back tomorrow. ₁₃But none of this means a thing to me as long as I see that Jew Mordecai sitting at the entrance of the palace.”

₁₄So his wife and all his friends suggested, “Why don't you have a gallows built, 22 metres tall? Tomorrow morning you can ask the king to have Mordecai hanged on it, and then you can go to the banquet happy.”

Haman thought this was a good idea, so he had the gallows built.

₁That same night the king could not get to sleep, so he ordered the official records of the empire to be brought and read to him. ₂The part they read included the account of how Mordecai had uncovered a plot to assassinate the king — the plot made by Bigthana and Teresh, the two palace eunuchs who had guarded the king's rooms. ₃The king asked, “How have we honoured and rewarded Mordecai for this?”

His servants answered, “Nothing has been done for him.”

₄“Are any of my officials in the palace?” the king asked.

Now Haman had just entered the courtyard; he had come to ask the king to have Mordecai hanged on the gallows that was now ready. ₅So the servants answered, “Haman is here, waiting to see you.”

“Show him in,” said the king.

₆So Haman came in, and the king said to him, “There is someone I wish very much to honour. What should I do for this man?”

Haman thought to himself, “Now who could the king want to honour so much? Me, of course.”

_7-8So he answered the king, “Order royal robes to be brought for this man — robes that you yourself wear. Order a royal ornament to be put on your own horse. ₉Then get one of your highest noblemen to dress the man in these robes and lead him, mounted on the horse, through the city square. Let the nobleman announce as they go: ‘See how the king rewards a person he wishes to honour!’ ”

₁₀Then the king said to Haman, “Hurry and get the robes and the horse, and provide these honours for Mordecai the Jew. Do everything for him that you have suggested. You will find him sitting at the entrance of the palace.”

₁₁So Haman got the robes and the horse, and he put the robes on Mordecai. Mordecai got on the horse, and Haman led him through the city square, announcing to the people as they went: “See how the king rewards a man he wishes to honour!”

₁₂Mordecai then went back to the palace entrance while Haman hurried home, covering his face in embarrassment. ₁₃He told his wife and all his friends everything that had happened to him. Then she and those wise friends of his said to him, “You are beginning to lose power to Mordecai. He is a Jew, and you cannot overcome him. He will certainly defeat you.”

₁₄While they were still talking, the palace eunuchs arrived in a hurry to take Haman to Esther's banquet.

₃Queen Esther answered, “If it please Your Majesty to grant my humble request, my wish is that I may live and that my people may live. ₄My people and I have been sold for slaughter. If it were nothing more serious than being sold into slavery, I would have kept quiet and not bothered you about it; but we are about to be destroyed — exterminated!”

₅Then King Xerxes asked Queen Esther, “Who dares to do such a thing? Where is this man?”

₆Esther answered, “Our enemy, our persecutor, is this evil man Haman!”

Haman stared at the king and queen in terror. ₇The king got up in a fury, left the room, and went outside to the palace gardens. Haman could see that the king was determined to punish him for this, so he stayed behind to beg Queen Esther for his life. ₈He had just thrown himself down on Esther's couch to beg for mercy, when the king came back into the room from the gardens. Seeing this, the king cried out, “Is this man going to rape the queen right here in front of me, in my own palace?”

The king had no sooner said this than the eunuchs covered Haman's head. ₉Then one of them, who was named Harbonah, said, “Haman even went so far as to build a gallows at his house so that he could hang Mordecai, who saved Your Majesty's life. And it's 22 metres tall!”

“Hang Haman on it!” the king commanded.

₁₀So Haman was hanged on the gallows that he had built for Mordecai. Then the king's anger cooled down.