1 When Mordecai perceived all that was done, Mordecai rent his clothes and put on sackcloth with ashes and went out into the midst of the city and cried with a loud and a bitter cry
2 and came before the king’s gate; for no one was allowed to enter into the king’s gate clothed with sackcloth.
3 And in each province, wherever the king’s commandment and his law came, there was great mourning among the Jews and fasting and weeping and wailing; and many lay in sackcloth and ashes.
4 So Esther’s maids and her eunuchs came and told her. Then the queen was grieved exceedingly, and she sent raiment to clothe Mordecai and to take away his sackcloth from him; but he did not receive it.