Esther 4:1-3

Amplified Bible

Esther Learns of Haman’s Plot

4 Now when Mordecai learned of everything that had been done, he tore his clothes [in mourning], and put on sackcloth and ashes, and went out into the center of the city and cried out loudly and bitterly. ² He went [only] as far as the king’s gate, because no one was to enter the king’s gate dressed in sackcloth. ³ In each and every province that the decree and law of the king reached, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting, weeping and wailing; and many lay on sackcloth and ashes.