The Children's Bible

by Henry A. Sherman; Charles Foster Kent

Then the king's servants, who were in the king's gate, said to Mordecai, "Why do you disobey the king's command?" When they had spoken to him day after day without his listening to them, they told Haman, so as to find out whether Mordecai's acts would be permitted, for he had told them that he was a Jew. When Haman saw that Mordecai did not bow down before him, he was very angry; but as they had told him that Mordecai was a Jew, he decided not to lay hands on him alone but to plot to destroy all the Jews in the whole kingdom of Xerxes.

So Haman said to King Xerxes, "There is a certain people scattered among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom, whose laws differ from those of every other and who do not keep the king's laws. Therefore it is not right for the king to leave them alone. If it seems best to the king, let an order be given to destroy them, and I will pay ten thousand silver talents into the royal treasury."

So the king took off his ring from his hand and gave it to Haman, "The money is yours and the people also to do with them as you wish." So messages were sent by men on horses to all the king's provinces, to destroy, to kill, and to put an end to all the Jews, young and old, little children and women, on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, and to rob them of all that they had. Then the king and Haman sat down to drink, but the people of Susa were troubled.

When Mordecai learned all that had been done, he tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and put ashes on his head, and went out into the city and raised a loud and bitter cry of sorrow. And he went as far as the king's gate, for no one could enter the gate clothed with sackcloth. In every province, wherever the king's command went, there was great mourning, fasting, weeping, and wailing among the Jews; and many of them sat in sackcloth and ashes.

When Esther's maids and servants told her about it, she was greatly troubled. She sent garments for Mordecai to put on, that he might take off his sackcloth; but he would not accept them. So Esther called Hathach, one of the king's servants whom he had appointed to wait on her, and ordered him to go to Mordecai to learn what this meant and how it had happened.

So Hathach went to Mordecai at the city square in front of the king's gate. 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 treasury. Also he gave him a copy of the order to destroy them, that had been given out in Susa, to show to Esther that she might know about it. He also urged her to go to the king and ask his mercy and plead with him for her people.

When Hathach came and told Esther what Mordecai had said, she commanded Hathach to go and say to Mordecai, "All the king's servants and the people of the king's provinces know that death is the punishment for every man or woman who goes to the king into the inner court without being called, except for the one to whom the king may hold out the golden sceptre, which means that he may live. But now for thirty days I have not been called to go in to the king."

When Mordecai was told what Esther had said, he sent back this answer to Esther, "Do not think that you alone of all the Jews will escape because you belong to the king's household. If you keep silent at this time, help will come to the Jews from somewhere else, but you and your family will perish. Who knows but that you have been raised to the throne for a time like this?"

Then Esther sent this message to Mordecai: "Go, gather all the Jews in Susa and fast for me; do not eat nor drink anything for three days and nights. I and my maids will fast also, and so I will go in to the king, although it is against the law. And if I perish I perish." So Mordecai went away and did as Esther directed.