Esther 4:1–3

Esther Agrees to Help the Jews

4 When Mordecai learned all that had happened, 1he atore his clothes and put on sackcloth band ashes, and went out into the midst of the city. He ccried out with a loud and bitter cry. 2 He went as far as the front of the king’s gate, for no one might enter the king’s gate clothed with sackcloth. 3 And in every province where the king’s command and decree arrived, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting, weeping, and wailing; and many lay in sackcloth and ashes.