Esther Agrees to Help the Jews

4 When Mordecai learned all that had been done, Mordecai tore his clothes ^(A)and put on sackcloth and ashes, and went out into the midst of the city, and he cried out with a loud and bitter cry. ² He went up to the entrance of the king's gate, for no one was allowed to enter the king's gate clothed in sackcloth. ³ And in every province, wherever the king's command and his decree reached, there was great mourning among the Jews, ^(B)with fasting and weeping and lamenting, and many of them ^(C)lay in sackcloth and ashes.

⁸ And he took ^(A)a piece of broken pottery with which to scrape himself while he sat in ^(B)the ashes.

¹³ And they sat with him on the ground ^(A)seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great.