A modern English translation drawn directly from the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek texts. Translated word-for-word where possible, by a committee with scholarly oversight.
Uses the same source texts as the ESV, NASB, and most academic Bibles, including the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia and the Nestle-Aland critical edition.
Esther 4
Esther 4 is the fourth chapter of the book of Esther. The 17-verse chapter records Mordecai urging Esther to risk her life for her people, and her decision to act.
When Mordecai learns of the decree, he tears his clothes, puts on sackcloth and ashes, and wails in the city, and the Jews throughout the provinces mourn, fast, and weep. Esther, distressed at the news of Mordecai's mourning, sends a servant to learn what is wrong. Mordecai sends back a copy of the decree and urges her to go to the king and plead for her people.
Esther replies that anyone who approaches the king in the inner court without being summoned faces death, unless the king extends his golden scepter, and that she has not been called for thirty days. Mordecai answers that she should not think she alone will escape, and that if she stays silent, deliverance will come from another place while she and her family perish. Then he adds the chapter's most famous line: "And who knows if perhaps you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?"
Esther resolves to act. She asks Mordecai to gather the Jews of Susa to fast for three days as she and her maidens will also fast, and then she will go to the king, saying, "And if I perish, I perish!"
Verse 1. When Mordecai learned of all that had happened, he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and ashes, and went out into the middle of the city, wailing loudly and bitterly.
Verse 2. But he went only as far as the king’s gate, because the law prohibited anyone wearing sackcloth from entering that gate.
Verse 3. In every province to which the king’s command and edict came, there was great mourning among the Jews. They fasted, wept, and lamented, and many lay in sackcloth and ashes.
Verse 4. When Esther’s maidens and eunuchs came and told her about Mordecai, the queen was overcome with distress. She sent clothes for Mordecai to wear instead of his sackcloth, but he would not accept them.
Verse 5. Then Esther summoned Hathach, one of the king’s eunuchs appointed to her, and she dispatched him to Mordecai to learn what was troubling him and why.
Verse 6. So Hathach went out to Mordecai in the city square in front of the king’s gate,
Verse 7. and Mordecai told him all that had happened to him, including the exact amount of money that Haman had promised to pay into the royal treasury in order to destroy the Jews.
Verse 8. Mordecai also gave Hathach a copy of the written decree issued in Susa for the destruction of the Jews, to show and explain to Esther, urging her to approach the king, implore his favor, and plead before him for her people.
Verse 9. So Hathach went back and relayed Mordecai’s response to Esther.
Verse 10. Then Esther spoke to Hathach and instructed him to tell Mordecai,
Verse 11. “All the royal officials and the people of the king’s provinces know that one law applies to every man or woman who approaches the king in the inner court without being summoned—that he be put to death. Only if the king extends the gold scepter may that person live. But I have not been summoned to appear before the king for the past thirty days.”
Verse 12. When Esther’s words were relayed to Mordecai,
Verse 13. he sent back to her this reply: “Do not imagine that because you are in the king’s palace you alone will escape the fate of all the Jews.
Verse 14. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows if perhaps you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”
Verse 15. Then Esther sent this reply to Mordecai:
Verse 16. “Go and assemble all the Jews who can be found in Susa, and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day, and I and my maidens will fast as you do. After that, I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish!”
Verse 17. So Mordecai went and did all that Esther had instructed him.
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