For we are sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be slain, and to perish. But if we had been sold for bondmen and bondwomen, I had held my tongue, although the enemy could not countervail the king's damage. {to be destroyed...: Heb. that they should destroy, and kill, and cause to perish}

Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved.

That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart.

Now in the twelfth month, that {is}, the month Adar, on the thirteenth day of the same, when the king's commandment and his decree drew near to be put in execution, in the day that the enemies of the Jews hoped to have power over them, (though it was turned to the contrary, that the Jews had rule over them that hated them;)

And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it,

And said unto the king, Let the king live for ever: why should not my countenance be sad, when the city, the place of my fathers' sepulchres, {lieth} waste, and the gates thereof are consumed with fire?

For how shall I go up to my father, and the lad {be} not with me? lest peradventure I see the evil that shall come on my father. {come...: Heb. find my father}

My bowels, my bowels! I am pained at my very heart; my heart maketh a noise in me; I cannot hold my peace, because thou hast heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war. {my very...: Heb. the walls of my heart}

Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people! {Oh...: Heb. Who will give my head, etc}

For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh: {accursed: or, separated}

For how shall I go up to my father, and the lad {be} not with me? lest peradventure I see the evil that shall come on my father. {come...: Heb. find my father}

Now therefore, I pray you, swear unto me by the LORD, since I have shewed you kindness, that ye will also shew kindness unto my father's house, and give me a true token:

And she went, and sat her down over against {him} a good way off, as it were a bowshot: for she said, Let me not see the death of the child. And she sat over against {him}, and lift up her voice, and wept.

Also he gave him the copy of the writing of the decree that was given at Shushan to destroy them, to shew {it} unto Esther, and to declare {it} unto her, and to charge her that she should go in unto the king, to make supplication unto him, and to make request before him for her people.

Then the king of Babylon slew the sons of Zedekiah in Riblah before his eyes: also the king of Babylon slew all the nobles of Judah.

Behold, {when} we come into the land, thou shalt bind this line of scarlet thread in the window which thou didst let us down by: and thou shalt bring thy father, and thy mother, and thy brethren, and all thy father's household, home unto thee. {bring: Heb. gather}