3 Queen Esther answered: “If I have found favor with you, O king, and if it pleases the king, let my life* be granted as my petition, and my people+ as my request. 4 For we have been sold,+ I and my people, to be annihilated, killed, and destroyed.+ If we had simply been sold as male and female slaves, I would have kept silent. But the distress is not proper, for it will be damaging to the king.”