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.
5 Then Esther called for Hatach, one of the king’s eunuchs, whom he had appointed to attend her, and sent him to Mordecai, to know what it was and why it was.
6 So Hatach went forth to Mordecai unto the plaza of the city, which was before the king’s gate.