When Mordecai learned of the conspiracy, ¹  he informed Queen Esther, ²  and Esther told the king in Mordecai’s behalf. ³ 

“But now, ask the animals and they ²  will teach you, or the birds of the sky and they will tell you.

No one denounces his conduct to his face; no one repays him for what ¹  he has done. ² 

If there is an angel beside him, one mediator ¹  out of a thousand, to tell a person what constitutes his uprightness; ² 

For the music director; a psalm of David. The heavens declare the glory of God; ²  the sky displays his handiwork. ³ 

“What ¹  profit is there in taking my life, ²  in my descending into the Pit? ³  Can the dust of the grave ⁴  praise you? Can it declare your loyalty? ⁵ 

and all people will fear. ¹  They will proclaim ²  what God has done, and reflect on his deeds.

So they proclaim that the Lord, my protector, is just and never unfair. ¹ 

Whoever shares with a thief ¹  is his own enemy; ²  he hears the oath to testify, ³  but does not talk.

Surely no one knows the future, ¹  and no one can tell another person what will happen. ² 

For this is what the sovereign master ¹  has told me: “Go, post a guard! He must report what he sees.

O my downtrodden people, crushed like stalks on the threshing floor, ¹  what I have heard from the Lord who commands armies, the God of Israel, I have reported to you.

Do you not know? Do you not hear? Has it not been told to you since the very beginning? Have you not understood from the time the earth’s foundations were made?

Look, my earlier predictive oracles have come to pass; ¹  now I announce new events. Before they begin to occur, I reveal them to you.” ² 

“I announced events beforehand, ¹  I issued the decrees and made the predictions; ²  suddenly I acted and they came to pass.

You have heard; now look at all the evidence! ¹  Will you not admit that what I say is true? ²  From this point on I am announcing to you new events that are previously unrevealed and you do not know about. ³ 

‘Call on me in prayer and I will answer you. I will show you great and mysterious ¹  things which you still do not know about.’

This day ¹  I have told you what he said. ²  But you do not want to obey the Lord by doing what he sent me to tell you. ³ 

They will answer, ‘Moab is disgraced, for it has fallen! Wail and cry out in mourning! Announce along the Arnon River that Moab has been destroyed.’

Then the people said to me, “Will you not tell us what these things you are doing mean for us?”