Esther 7
1 So the king and Aman went in, to drink with the queen.
So the king and Aman went in to drink with the queen.
2 And the king said to her again the second day, after he was warm with wine: What is thy petition, Esther, that it may be granted thee? and what wilt thou have done: although thou ask the half of my kingdom, thou shalt have it.
And the king said to Esther at the banquet on the second day, What is it, queen Esther? and what [is] thy request, and what [is] thy petition? and it shall be [done] for thee, to the half of my kingdom.
3 Then she answered: If I have found Favour in thy sight, O king, and if it please thee, give me my life for which I ask, and my people for which I request.
And she answered and said, If I have found favour in the sight of the king, let [my] life be granted to my petition, and my people to my request.
4 For we are given up, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be slain, and to perish. And would God we were sold for bondmen and bondwomen: the evil might be borne with, and I would have mourned in silence: but now we have an enemy, whose cruelty redoundeth upon the king.
For both I and my people are sold for destruction, and pillage, and slavery; [both] we and our children for bondmen and bondwomen: and I consented not to it, for the slanderer [is] not worthy of the king’s palace.
5 And king Assuerus answered and said: Who is this, and of what power, that he should do these things?
And the king said, Who [is] this that has dared to do this thing?
6 And Esther said: It is this Aman that is our adversary and most wicked enemy. Aman hearing this was forthwith astonished, not being able to bear the countenance of the king and of the queen.
And Esther said, The adversary [is] Aman, this wicked man. Then Aman was troubled before the king and the queen.
7 But the king being angry rose up, and went from the place of the banquet into the garden set with trees. Aman also rose up to entreat Esther the queen for his life, for he understood that evil was prepared for him by the king.
And the king rose up from the banquet to go into the garden: and Aman began to intreat the queen; for he saw that he was in an evil case.
8 And when the king came back out of the garden set with trees, and entered into the place of the banquet, he found Aman was fallen upon the bed on which Esther lay, and he said: He will force the queen also in my presence, in my own house. The word was not yet gone out of the king’s mouth, and immediately they covered his face.
And the king returned from the garden; and Aman had fallen upon the bed, intreating the queen. And the king said, Wilt thou even force [my] wife in my house? And when Aman heard it, he changed countenance.
9 And Harbona, one of the eunuchs that stood waiting on the king, said: Behold the gibbet which he hath prepared for Mardochai, who spoke for the king, standeth in Aman’s house, being fifty cubits high. And the king said to him: Hang him upon it.
And Bugathan, one of the chamberlains, said to the king, Behold, Aman has also prepared a gallows for Mardochæus, who spoke concerning the king, and a gallows of fifty cubits high has been set up in the premises of Aman. And the king said, Let him be hanged thereon.
10 So Aman was hanged on the gibbet, which he had prepared for Mardochai: and the king’s wrath ceased.
So Aman was hanged on the gallows that had been prepared for Mardochæus: and then the king’s wrath was appeased.
