Esther 7

Esther Pleads for Her Peopleⓘ

Esther exposes Haman¹So the king and Haman went to dine with Esther the queen, ²and as they drank their wine on that second day, the king asked once more, “Queen Esther, what is your petition? It will be given to you. What is your request? Even up to half the kingdom, it will be fulfilled.”

³Queen Esther replied, “If I have found favor in your sight, O king, and if it pleases the king, grant me my life as my petition, and the lives of my people as my request. ⁴For my people and I have been sold out to destruction, death, and annihilation. If we had merely been sold as menservants and maidservants, I would have remained silent, because no such distress would justify burdening the king.”

⁵Then King Xerxes spoke up and asked Queen Esther, “Who is this, and where is the one who would devise^a such a scheme?”

⁶Esther replied, “The adversary and enemy is this wicked man—Haman!”

And Haman stood in terror before the king and queen.

The Hanging of Hamanⓘ

Haman is hanged on his own gallows⁷In his fury, the king arose from drinking his wine and went to the palace garden, while Haman stayed behind to beg Queen Esther for his life, for he realized that the king was planning a terrible fate for him.

⁸Just as the king returned from the palace garden to the banquet hall, Haman was falling on the couch where Esther was reclining. The king exclaimed, “Would he actually assault the queen while I am in the palace?”

As soon as the words had left the kingʼs mouth, they covered Hamanʼs face.

⁹Then Harbonah, one of the eunuchs attending the king, said: “There is a gallows fifty cubits high^b at Hamanʼs house. He had it built for Mordecai, who gave the report that saved the king.”

“Hang him on it!” declared the king.

¹⁰So they hanged Haman on the gallows he had prepared for Mordecai. Then the fury of the king subsided.