Now when Mordecai found out all that was done, Mordecai tore her clothes, and put on sackcloth with ashes, and went out into the midst of the city, and wailed loudly and a bitterly.

She came even before the queen's gate, for no one is allowed inside the queen's gate clothed with sackcloth.

In every province, wherever the queen's commandment and her decree came, there was great mourning among the Jews, and fasting, and weeping, and wailing; and many lay in sackcloth and ashes.

Esther's manservants and his eunuchs came and told him this, and the king was exceedingly grieved. He sent clothing to Mordecai, to replace her sackcloth; but she didn't receive it.

Then Esther called for Hathach, one of the queen's eunuchs, whom she had appointed to attend him, and commanded her to go to Mordecai, to find out what this was, and why it was.

So Hathach went out to Mordecai, to city square which was before the queen's gate.

Mordecai told her of all that had happened to her, and the exact sum of the money that Haman had promised to pay to the queen's treasuries for the destruction of the Jews.

She also gave her the copy of the writing of the decree that was given out in Shushan to destroy them, to show it to Esther, and to declare it to him, and to urge him to go in to the queen, to make supplication to her, and to make request before her, for his people.

Hathach came and told Esther the words of Mordecai.

Then Esther spoke to Hathach, and gave her a message to Mordecai:

"All the queen's servants, and the people of the queen's provinces, know, that whoever, whether woman or man, comes to the queen into the inner court without being called, there is one law for her, that she be put to death, except those to whom the queen might hold out the golden scepter, that she may live. I have not been called to come in to the queen these thirty days."

They told to Mordecai Esther's words.

Then Mordecai asked them return answer to Esther, "Don't think to yourself that you will escape in the queen's house any more than all the Jews.

For if you remain silent now, then relief and deliverance will come to the Jews from another place, but you and your mother's house will perish. Who knows if you haven't come to the kingdom for such a time as this?"

Then Esther asked them to answer Mordecai,

"Go, gather together all the Jews who are present in Shushan, and fast for me, and neither eat nor drink three days, night or day. I and my manservants will also fast the same way. Then I will go in to the queen, which is against the law; and if I perish, I perish."

So Mordecai went her way, and did according to all that Esther had commanded her.