1 When Mordecai learned all that was done, he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and ashes, and went out into the middle of the city crying out in a loud and bitter voice.
2 He went only as far as the king’s gate, because no one could enter the king’s gate clothed in sackcloth.
3 In each and every province where the king’s edict and law came, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting, weeping and wailing. Many put on sackcloth and ashes.
4 When Esther’s maids and eunuchs came and told her, the queen was greatly distressed. She sent clothes for Mordecai to put on so he would remove his sackcloth, but he refused.
5 So Esther summoned Hathach, one of the king’s eunuchs whom he had appointed to attend her, and ordered him to go to Mordecai to find the cause and reason for this.
6 So Hathach went out to Mordecai in the city square in front of the king’s gate.
7 Mordecai told him everything that had happened to him, even the exact amount of money that Haman had promised to pay to the king’s treasuries for the destruction of the Jews.