⁶ The words of the wicked are about lying in wait for blood, But the speech of the upright rescues them.

³ The fool's talk brings a rod to his back, But the lips of the wise protect them.

²⁶ For among my people are found wicked men: they watch, as fowlers lie in wait; they set a trap, they catch men.

⁷ Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood: their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; desolation and destruction are in their paths.

¹¹ If they say, "Come with us, Let's lay in wait for blood; Let's lurk secretly for the innocent without cause;

¹² Let's swallow them up alive like Sheol, And whole, like those who go down into the pit.

¹³ We'll find all valuable wealth. We'll fill our houses with spoil.

¹⁴ You shall cast your lot among us. We'll all have one purse."

¹⁵ My son, don't walk in the way with them. Keep your foot from their path,

¹⁶ For their feet run to evil. They hurry to shed blood.

¹⁷ For in vain is the net spread in the sight of any bird:

¹⁸ But these lay wait for their own blood. They lurk secretly for their own lives.

¹⁹ So are the ways of everyone who is greedy for gain. It takes away the life of its owners.

⁴ for we are sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be slain, and to perish. But if we had been sold for bondservants and bondmaids, I had held my peace, although the adversary could not have compensated for the king's damage.

⁵ Then spoke the king Ahasuerus and said to Esther the queen, Who is he, and where is he, that dared presume in his heart to do so?

⁶ Esther said, An adversary and an enemy, even this wicked Haman. Then Haman was afraid before the king and the queen.

⁷ Mordecai told him of all that had happened to him, and the exact sum of the money that Haman had promised to pay to the king's treasuries for the Jews, to destroy them.

⁸ Also he gave him the copy of the writing of the decree that was given out in Shushan to destroy them, to show it to Esther, and to declare it to her, and to charge her that she should go in to the king, to make supplication to him, and to make request before him, for her people.

⁹ Hathach came and told Esther the words of Mordecai.

¹⁰ Then Esther spoke to Hathach, and gave him a message to Mordecai [saying]:

¹¹ All the king's servants, and the people of the king's provinces, do know, that whoever, whether man or woman, shall come to the king into the inner court, who is not called, there is one law for him, that he be put to death, except those to whom the king shall hold out the golden scepter, that he may live: but I have not been called to come in to the king these thirty days.

¹² They told to Mordecai Esther's words.

¹³ Then Mordecai bade them return answer to Esther, Don't think to yourself that you shall escape in the king's house, more than all the Jews.

¹⁴ For if you altogether hold your peace at this time, then will relief and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place, but you and your father's house will perish: and who knows whether you haven't come to the kingdom for such a time as this?

¹ Moreover Ahithophel said to Absalom, Let me now choose out twelve thousand men, and I will arise and pursue after David this night:

² and I will come on him while he is weary and weak-handed, and will make him afraid; and all the people who are with him shall flee; and I will strike the king only;

³ and I will bring back all the people to you: the man whom you seek is as if all returned: [so] all the people shall be in peace.

⁴ The saying pleased Absalom well, and all the elders of Israel.

³ asking a favor against him, that he would summon him to Jerusalem; plotting to kill him on the way.

¹⁵ Now therefore, you with the council inform the commanding officer that he should bring him down to you tomorrow, as though you were going to judge his case more exactly. We are ready to kill him before he comes near."

¹² When it was day, some of the Jews banded together, and bound themselves under a curse, saying that they would neither eat nor drink until they had killed Paul.

¹ Misery is mine! Indeed, I am like one who gathers the summer fruits, as gleanings of the vinyard: There is no cluster of grapes to eat. My soul desires to eat the early fig.

² The godly man has perished out of the earth, And there is no one upright among men. They all lie in wait for blood; Every man hunts his brother with a net.