and as they were drinking wine(A) on the second day, the king again asked, “Queen Esther, what is your petition? It will be given you. What is your request? Even up to half the kingdom,(B) it will be granted.(C)

Then Queen Esther answered, “If I have found favor(D) with you, Your Majesty, and if it pleases you, grant me my life—this is my petition. And spare my people—this is my request. For I and my people have been sold to be destroyed, killed and annihilated.(E) If we had merely been sold as male and female slaves, I would have kept quiet, because no such distress would justify disturbing the king.[a]

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Footnotes

  1. Esther 7:4 Or quiet, but the compensation our adversary offers cannot be compared with the loss the king would suffer

And the king said again unto Esther on the second day at the banquet of wine, What is thy petition, queen Esther? and it shall be granted thee: and what is thy request? and it shall be performed, even to the half of the kingdom.

Then Esther the queen answered and said, If I have found favour in thy sight, O king, and if it please the king, let my life be given me at my petition, and my people at my request:

For we are sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be slain, and to perish. But if we had been sold for bondmen and bondwomen, I had held my tongue, although the enemy could not countervail the king's damage.

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