Esther 7

DOUAI-RHEIMS	CATHOLIC PUBLIC DOMAIN
1 So the king and Aman went in, to drink with the queen.	1 When Mordecai had heard this, he tore his garments and put on sackcloth, strewing ashes on his head, and he cried out with a loud voice in the main street of the city, revealing the anguish of his soul.
2 And the king said to her again the second day, after he was warm with wine: What is thy petition, Esther, that it may be granted thee? and what wilt thou have done: although thou ask the half of my kingdom, thou shalt have it.	2 And he continued with this lamenting, even up to the gate of the palace, for no one clothed with sackcloth is permitted to enter the king’s court.
3 Then she answered: If I have found Favour in thy sight, O king, and if it please thee, give me my life for which I ask, and my people for which I request.	3 Likewise, in all provinces, towns, and places where the king’s cruel decision arrived, there was extraordinary mourning among the Jews with fasting, wailing, and weeping, with many using sackcloth and ashes for their bed.
4 For we are given up, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be slain, and to perish. And would God we were sold for bondmen and bondwomen: the evil might be borne with, and I would have mourned in silence: but now we have an enemy, whose cruelty redoundeth upon the king.	4 Then Esther’s maids and eunuchs went in and informed her. When she heard it, she was shocked, and she sent a garment to clothe him and to take away the sackcloth, but he would not accept it.
5 And king Assuerus answered and said: Who is this, and of what power, that he should do these things?	5 And she sent for Hathach the eunuch, whom the king had appointed to minister to her, and she instructed him to go to Mordecai and to discern from him why he was doing this.
6 And Esther said: It is this Aman that is our adversary and most wicked enemy. Aman hearing this was forthwith astonished, not being able to bear the countenance of the king and of the queen.	6 And departing, Hathach went to Mordecai, who was standing in the street of the city, in front of the palace entrance.
7 But the king being angry rose up, and went from the place of the banquet into the garden set with trees. Aman also rose up to entreat Esther the queen for his life, for he understood that evil was prepared for him by the king.	7 He told him everything that had happened, how Haman had promised to transfer silver into the king’s treasury for the death of the Jews.
8 And when the king came back out of the garden set with trees, and entered into the place of the banquet, he found Aman was fallen upon the bed on which Esther lay, and he said: He will force the queen also in my presence, in my own house. The word was not yet gone out of the king's mouth, and immediately they covered his face.	8 Also, he gave him a copy of the edict that was hanging up in Susa, so that he would show it to the queen and advise her to go in to the king and beg him on behalf of her people.
9 And Harbona, one of the eunuchs that stood waiting on the king, said: Behold the gibbet which he hath prepared for Mardochai, who spoke for the king, standeth in Aman's house, being fifty cubits high. And the king said to him: Hang him upon it.	9 And Hathach returned and informed Esther of all that Mordecai had said.
10 So Aman was hanged on the gibbet, which he had prepared for Mardochai: and the king's wrath ceased.	10 Likewise, all Israel cried out to the Lord with the same intention and supplication because certain death was hanging over them.