Esther

¹ So the king and Haman went to dinner with Queen Esther.

² At this second dinner, while they were drinking wine the king again asked, "Queen Esther, what would you like? Half of my kingdom! Just ask and it's yours."

³ Queen Esther answered, "If I have found favor in your eyes, O King, and if it please the king, give me my life, and give my people their lives.

⁴ "We've been sold, I and my people, to be destroyed—sold to be massacred, eliminated. If we had just been sold off into slavery, I wouldn't even have brought it up; our troubles wouldn't have been worth bothering the king over."

⁵ King Xerxes exploded, "Who? Where is he? This is monstrous!"

⁶ Haman was terror-stricken before the king and queen.

⁷ Haman stood there pleading with Queen Esther for his life—he could see that the king was finished with him and that he was doomed.

⁸ When that word left the king's mouth, all the blood drained from Haman's face.

⁹ The king said, "Hang him on it!"

¹⁰ So Haman was hanged on the very gallows that he had built for Mordecai. And the king's hot anger cooled.