< Esther 7 >

1 And the king comes in, and Haman, to drink with Esther the queen,
So the king and Aman went in, to drink with the queen.
2 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.”
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.
3 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;
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.
4 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.”
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.
5 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?”
And king Assuerus answered and said: Who is this, and of what power, that he should do these things?
6 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.
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.
7 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.
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.
8 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.
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.
9 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.”
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.
10 And they hang Haman on the tree that he had prepared for Mordecai, and the fury of the king has lain down.
So Aman was hanged on the gibbet, which he had prepared for Mardochai: and the king’s wrath ceased.

< Esther 7 >