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Esther 5
5:1f ‘What is the matter, Esther?’ he said ‘I am your brother. Take heart; you will not die; our order only applies to ordinary people. Come to me.’
2 And raising his golden sceptre he laid it on her neck, embraced her and said, ‘Speak to me’.
5:2b But as she spoke she fell down in a faint. The king was distressed, and all his attendants tried their best to revive her.
3 ‘What is the matter, Queen Esther?’ the king said. ‘Tell me what you desire; even if it is half my kingdom, I grant it you.’
4 ‘Would the king be pleased’ Esther replied ‘to come with Haman today to the banquet I have prepared for him?’
5 The king said, ‘Tell Haman to come at once, so that Esther may have her wish’. So the king and Haman came to the banquet that Esther had prepared.
6 As they drank their wine, the king again said to Esther, ‘Tell me what you request; I grant it to you. Tell me what you desire; even if it is half my kingdom, it is yours for the asking.’
7 ‘What do I desire, what do I request?’ Esther replied.
8 ‘If I have found favour in the king’s eyes, and if it is his pleasure to grant what I ask and to agree to my request, let the king and Haman come to the other banquet I intend to give them tomorrow, and then I will do as the king says.’
9 Haman left full of joy and high spirits that day; but when he saw Mordecai at the Chancellery, neither standing up nor stirring at his approach, he felt a gust of anger.
10 He restrained himself, however. Returning home, he sent for his friends and Zeresh his wife
11 and held forth to them about his dazzling wealth, his many children, how the king had raised him to a position of honour and promoted him over the heads of the king’s administrators and ministers.
12 ‘What is more,’ he added ‘Queen Esther just invited me and the king-no one else except me-to a banquet she was giving, and better still she has invited me and the king again tomorrow.
13 But what do I care about all this when all the while I see Mordecai the Jew sitting there at the Chancellery?’
14 ‘Have a fifty-cubit gallows run up,’ Zeresh his wife and all his friends said ‘and in the morning ask the king to have Mordecai hanged on it. Then accompany the king to the feast without a care in the world!’ Delighted with this advice, Haman had the gallows erected.