Esther - Chapter 14

Passage

Queen Esther also, fearing the danger that was at hand, had recourse to the Lord. And when she had laid away her royal apparel, she put on garments suitable for weeping and mourning: instead of divers precious ointments, she covered her head with ashes and dung, and she humbled her body with fasts: and all the places in which before she was accustomed to rejoice, she filled with her torn hair. And she prayed to the Lord the God of Israel, saying: O my Lord, who alone art our king, help me a desolate woman, and who have no other helper but you. My danger is in my hands. I have heard of my father that you, O Lord, did take Israel from among all nations, and our fathers from all their predecessors, to possess them as an everlasting inheritance, and you have done to them as you have promised. We have sinned in your sight, and therefore you have delivered us into the hands of our enemies: For we have worshipped their gods. You are just, O Lord. And now they are not content to oppress us with most hard bondage, but attributing the strength of their hands to the power of their idols, They design to change your promises, and destroy your inheritance, and shut the mouths of them that praise you, and extinguish the glory of your temple and altar, That they may open the mouths of Gentiles, and praise the strength of idols, and magnify for ever a carnal king. Give not, O Lord, your sceptre to them that are not, lest they laugh at our ruin: but turn their counsel upon themselves, and destroy him that has begun to rage against us. Remember, O Lord, and show yourself to us in the time of our tribulation, and give me boldness, O Lord, king of gods, and of all power: Give me a well ordered speech in my mouth in the presence of the lion, and turn his heart to the hatred of our enemy, that both he himself may perish, and the rest that consent to him. But deliver us by your hand, and help me, who have no other helper, but you, O Lord, who have the knowledge of all things. And you know that I hate the glory of the wicked, and abhor the bed of the uncircumcised, and of every stranger. You know my necessity, that I abominate the sign of my pride and glory, which is upon my head in the days of my public appearance, and detest it as a menstruous rag, and wear it not in the days of my silence, And that I have not eaten at Aman's table, nor has the king's banquet pleased me, and that I have not drunk the wine of the drink offerings: And that your handmaid has never rejoiced, since I was brought here to this day but in you, O Lord, the God of Abraham. O God, who art mighty above all, hear the voice of them, that have no other hope, and deliver us from the hand of the wicked, and deliver me from my fear.