Online Bible: New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures

1 Then the king and Ha´man came in to banquet with Esther the queen. 2 The king now said to Esther also on the second day during the banquet of wine: “What is your petition, O Esther the queen? Let it even be given to you. And what is your request? To the half of the kingship—let it even be done!” 3 At this Esther the queen answered and said: “If I have found favor in your eyes, O king, and if to the king it does seem good, let there be given me my own soul at my petition and my people at my request. 4 For we have been sold, I and my people, to be annihilated, killed and destroyed. Now if we had been sold for mere men slaves and for mere maidservants, I should have kept silent. But the distress is not appropriate when with damage to the king.”

5 King A·has·u·e´rus now said, yes, he went on to say to Esther the queen: “Who is this, and just where is the one who has emboldened himself to do that way?” 6 Then Esther said: “The man, the adversary and enemy, is this bad Ha´man.”

As for Ha´man, he became terrified because of the king and the queen. 7 As for the king, he rose up in his rage from the banquet of wine [to go] to the garden of the palace; and Ha´man himself stood up to make request for his soul from Esther the queen, for he saw that bad had been determined against him by the king. 8 And the king himself returned from the garden of the palace to the house of the wine banquet; and Ha´man was fallen upon the couch on which Esther was. Consequently the king said: “Is there also to be a raping of the queen, with me in the house?” The word itself went out of the king’s mouth, and Ha´man’s face they covered. 9 Har·bo´na, one of the court officials before the king, now said: “Also, there is the stake that Ha´man made for Mor´de·cai, who had spoken good concerning the king, standing in Ha´man’s house—fifty cubits high.” At that the king said: “YOU men, hang him on it.” 10 And they proceeded to hang Ha´man on the stake that he had prepared for Mor´de·cai; and the king’s rage itself subsided.