For how shall I be able and I looked upon the evil which shall be found with my people? And how shall I be able and I looked upon the destruction of my kindred?
For we were sold, I and my people, to cut off, to kill and to destroy. And if for servants and for maids we were sold, I was silent, but the enemy made not even for the loss of the king.
My bowels, my bowels! I shall afflict the walls of my heart; my heart made commotion to me; I shall not be silent, for the voice of the trumpet thou didst hear, O my soul, the tumult of war.
And in the twelfth month (this the month Adar) in the thirteenth day in it, when the word of the king drew near, and his edict to do in the day that the enemies of the Jews expected to have power over them, (and it was turned that these Jews will have power over those hating them:)
And saying to the king, O king, thou wilt live forever: wherefore shall not my face be sad when the city of the house of my father's sepulchres was laid waste, and its gates consumed with fire?