Chapter 7

1 The king and Haman came to drink with Queen Esther.

2 And again on the second day the king said to Esther during the wine feast, "What is your plea, Queen Esther? It will be granted you. What is your request? [Even if it be] half the kingdom it will be fulfilled." 3 Queen Esther replied and said: "If I have found favor in your eyes, O King, and if it please the King, let my life be granted me by my plea, and the life of my people by my request. 4 For my people and I have been sold to be annihilated, killed and destroyed! Had we been sold as slaves and maidservants I would have kept silent. But indeed the persecutor is not bothered by the King's loss."

5 King Achashverosh said he said to Queen Esther, "Who is this, and which one is he, that has the audacity to do such a thing?" 6 "A man who is a persecutor and an enemy: this evil Haman!" Esther replied. And Haman shuddered in the presence of the king and the queen. 7 The king arose in wrath and left the wine feast [and went] to the palace garden, while Haman stood up to beg Queen Esther for his life, for he realized that the king's hostility towards him was irrevocable. 8 And the king returned from the palace garden to the wine-feast chamber, and Haman had fallen upon the divan upon which Esther was reclining. The king said, "Does he even intend to have his way with the queen while I am in the palace!" As soon as these words left the king's mouth the face of Haman was covered. 9 Then Charvonah, one of the chamberlains that attended the king, said, "In addition, there is the gallows that Haman erected for Mordechai, who spoke for the King's good, standing at Haman's house, fifty cubits high!" "Hang him upon it!" said the king. 10 And they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordechai and the king's wrath abated.