¹⁰ Esther did not reveal her people or kindred, for Mordecai had charged her not to tell.^(A)

Coming Persecutions

¹⁶ “I am sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.^(A)

²⁰ Now Esther had not revealed her kindred or her people, as Mordecai had charged her, for Esther obeyed Mordecai just as when she was brought up by him.^(A)

Children and Parents

6 Children, obey your parents in the Lord,^[a] for this is right.

⁸ Then Haman said to King Ahasuerus, “There is a certain people scattered and separated among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom; their laws are different from those of every other people, and they do not keep the king’s laws, so that it is not appropriate for the king to tolerate them.^(A)

⁴ For we have been sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be killed, and to be annihilated. If we had been sold merely as slaves, men and women, I would have held my peace, but no enemy can compensate for this damage to the king.”^[a](A)

¹³ Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, “Do not think that in the king’s palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. ¹⁴ For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. Who knows? Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this.”

⁷ He had brought up Hadassah, that is, Esther, his cousin, for she had neither father nor mother; the young woman was fair and beautiful, and when her father and her mother died, Mordecai adopted her as his own daughter.^(A)