1Queene Esther also being in fear of death, resorted unto the Lord,
2And laid away her glorious apparel, and put on the garments of anguish, & mourning: and instead of previous ointments, she covered her head with ashes, & doing, and she humbled her body greatly, and all the places of her joy she filled with her torn hair.
3And she prayed unto the Lord God of Israel, saying, O my Lord, thou only art our king: help me desolate woman, which have no helper but thee:
4For my danger is in mine hand.
5From my youth up I have heard in the tribe of my family, that thou, O Lord, took Israel from among all people, and our fathers from all their predecessors, for a perpetual inheritance, and thou hast performed whatsoever thou didst promise them.
6And now we have sinned before thee: therefore, hast thou given us into the hands of our enemies,
7Because wee worshipped their gods: O Lord, thou art righteous.
8Nevertheles it satisfiedith them not, that we are in bitter captivities, but they have stricken hands with their idols,
9That they will abolish the thing, that thou with thy mouth hast ordained, and destroy thine inheritance, and stop the mouth of them that praise thee, and quench the glory of thy house, and of thine Altar,
10And open the mouths of the heathen to set forth the praises of the Idols, and to magnifed a fleshly king forever.
11O Lord, give not thy scepter unto them that be nothing, and let them not laugh at our fall, but turn their device upon themselves, and make him an example that hath begun this against us.
12Remember, O Lord, make thy self-known in time of our affliction, and give mee boldness, O King of the nations, and Lord of all power.
13Giue me eloquent speech in my mouth before the lion: turn his heart to hate him that fighteth against vs, that there may be an end of him, and of all that are like minded to him:
14But deliver us with thine hand, and help me that am desolate, & which have no other helper but thee.
15Thou knowest all things, O Lord, thou knowest that I hate the glory of the unrighteous, and abhor the bed of the uncircumcised, and of all the heathen.
16Thou knowest my necessitie: for I abhorre the signe of my high estate, which is vpon mine head, in the dayes wherein I shewe my selfe, and that I abhorre it as a menstruous ragge, and that I weare it not when I am priuate by my selfe.
17And that thine handmaid hath not eaten at Amans table, and that I haue not greatly esteemed the Kings feast, nor drunke the wine of the drinke offerings:
18Neither had thine handmaid any ioy, since the day that I was brought hither to this present, but in thee, O Lord God of Abraham.
19 O thou mighty God above all, hear the voice of the forlorn, and deliver vs out of the hands of the mischievous, and deliver me out of my fear.
