Esther 7:2-4

International Standard Version

² On the second day the king again told Esther as they drank wine, “What’s your petition, Queen Esther? It will be given to you. What’s your request? Up to half of the kingdom, and it will be done.”

³ Queen Esther answered: “If I’ve found favor with you, your majesty, and if it seems good to the king, let my life be given to me as my petition and my people as my request. ⁴ Indeed, I and my people have been sold to be annihilated, killed, and destroyed. If we had just been sold as male and female slaves, I would have kept quiet, because the trouble wouldn’t have been sufficient to bother the king.”^[a]