Greek Additions to Esther

1Queen Esther also, being seized as it were with the agony of death, resorted to the Lord:

2and laid away her glorious apparel, and put on the garments of anguish and mourning: and instead of the most excellent ointments, she covered her head with ashes and dung, and she humbled her body greatly, and all the places of the ornaments of her joy she covered with her tangled hair.

3And she prayed to the Lord, the God of Israel, saying, O my Lord, you only are our King: help me that am desolate and have no other helper but you:

4for my danger is in mine hand.

5From my youth up I have heard in the tribe of my family, that you, O Lord, took Israel from among all the nations, and our fathers from all their progenitors, for a perpetual inheritance, and did perform for them whatever you did promise.

6And now we have sinned before you, and you have given us into the hands of our enemies,

7because we glorified their gods: O Lord, you are righteous.

8Nevertheless it satisfies them not, that we are in bitter captivity: but they have stricken hands with their idols,

9that they will abolish the thing that you with your mouth have ordained, and destroy your inheritance, and stop the mouth of them that praise you, and quench the glory of your house, and your altar,

10and open the mouths of the heathen to set forth the virtues of idols, and that a fleshly king shall be magnified for ever.

11O Lord, give not your sceptre to them that be nothing, and let them not laugh at our fall; but turn their device upon themselves, and make him an example, that has begun this against us.

12Remember, O Lord, make yourself known in the time of our affliction, and give me boldness, O King of the gods, and holder of all dominion.

13Give me eloquent speech in my mouth before the lion: and turn his heart to hate him that fights against us, that there may be an end of him, and of them that are like-minded with him:

14but deliver us with your hand, and help me that am desolate and have no other helper but you, O Lord.

15You have knowledge of all things; and you know that I hate the glory of the wicked, and abhor the bed of the uncircumcised, and of every alien.

16You know my necessity: that I abhor the sign of my high estate, which is upon mine head in the days wherein I show myself. I abhor it as a menstruous rag, and I wear it not when I am private by myself.

17And your handmaid has not eaten at Aman’s table, neither have I honored the king’s feast, nor drunk the wine of the drink offerings.

18Neither had your handmaid any joy since the day that I was brought hither to this present, but in you, O Lord, you God of Abraham.

19O God, that are mighty above all, hear the voice of the forlorn, and deliver us out of the hands of the mischievous, and deliver me out of my fear.