“In every province, wherever the king’s commandment and his decree came, there was great mourning among the Jews, and fasting, and weeping, and wailing; and many lay in sackcloth and ashes.”

Reading this verse in context

This page shows one verse on its own, which is rarely how it was written. Esther 4 contains 17 verses, and the sentences either side usually decide what this one means. Read the whole chapter before you quote it.

Text: World English Bible, Protestant edition (engwebp), eBible.org — public domain.