Esther 7:2-4

Complete Jewish Bible

² and the king again said to Ester at the wine banquet, “Whatever your request, Queen Ester, you will be granted it; whatever you want, up to half the kingdom, it will be done.” ³ Ester the queen answered, “If I have won your favor, king, and if it pleases the king, then what I ask be given me is my own life and the lives of my people. ⁴ For we have been sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, killed, exterminated. If we had only been sold as men- and women-slaves, I would have remained quiet; since then [our] trouble would not have been worth the damage it would have caused the king [to alter the situation].”