< Esther 7 >

1 So the king and Haman went to drink with Queen Esther.
And the king comes in, and Haman, to drink with Esther the queen,
2 As they were drinking wine on that second day, the king again said to Esther, ‘Whatever your petition is, Queen Esther, it will be granted to you. Whatever you request it will be done, even if it takes half of the kingdom.’
and the king says to Esther also on the second day, during the banquet of wine, “What [is] your petition, Esther, O queen? And it is given to you; and what [is] your request? To the half of the kingdom—and it is done.”
3 Then Queen Esther answered, ‘Your Majesty, if I have won your favour, and if it seems best to Your Majesty, let my life be given me as my petition, and my people as my request,
And Esther the queen answers and says, “If I have found grace in your eyes, O king, and if to the king [it be] good, let my life be given to me at my petition, and my people at my request;
4 for I and my people have been sold to be destroyed, killed, and completely annihilated! If we had been merely sold into slavery I would not have disturbed your peace, because such a fate would not have affected the interests of the king.’
for we have been sold, I and my people, to cut off, to slay, and to destroy; and if for menservants and for maidservants we had been sold I had kept silent—but the adversity is not equal to the loss of the king.”
5 Then King Ahasuerus said to Queen Esther, ‘Who is he and where is he whose heart has impelled him to do this?’
And King Ahasuerus says, indeed, he says to Esther the queen, “Who [is] he—this one? And where [is] this one whose heart has filled him to do so?”
6 ‘A foe, an enemy: this wicked Haman.’ Esther answered. Haman shrank in terror before the king and the queen.
And Esther says, “The man—adversary and enemy—[is] this wicked Haman”; and Haman has been afraid at the presence of the king and of the queen.
7 In his wrath the king rose from the place where he was drinking wine and went into the palace garden. Haman stayed to beg Queen Esther for his life, for he saw that the king was fully determined to bring calamity upon him.
And the king has risen, in his fury, from the banquet of wine, to the garden of the house, and Haman has remained to seek for his life from Esther the queen, for he has seen that evil has been determined against him by the king.
8 As the king returned from the palace garden to the banquet hall, Haman had flung himself on Esther’s couch. The king cried, ‘Is he going to rape my queen while I am present in my own house?’ As the king spoke these words, the attendants covered Haman’s face
And the king has turned back out of the garden of the house to the house of the banquet of wine, and Haman is falling on the couch on which Esther [is], and the king says, “Also to subdue the queen with me in the house?” The word has gone out from the mouth of the king, and the face of Haman they have covered.
9 and Harbonah, one of those who waited on the king, said, ‘There are the gallows, seventy-five feet high, which Hainan erected for Mordecai, who spoke a good word in behalf of the king, standing in the house of Haman!’ The king said ‘Hang him on them.’
And Harbonah, one of the eunuchs, says before the king, “Also behold, the tree that Haman made for Mordecai, who spoke good for the king, is standing in the house of Haman, in height fifty cubits”; and the king says, “Hang him on it.”
10 So they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai. Then the wrath of the king was pacified.
And they hang Haman on the tree that he had prepared for Mordecai, and the fury of the king has lain down.

< Esther 7 >