Lectionary Calendar
Saturday, December 20th, 2025
the Third Week of Advent
Attention!
StudyLight.org has pledged to help build churches in Uganda. Help us with that pledge and support pastors in the heart of Africa.
Click here to join the effort!

Read the Bible

Bible in Basic English

Esther 8:6

For how is it possible for me to see the evil which is to overtake my nation? how may I see the destruction of my people?

Bible Study Resources

Concordances:

- Nave's Topical Bible - Ring;   Thompson Chain Reference - Esther;   Queens;   Women;  

Dictionaries:

- Holman Bible Dictionary - Esther;  

Encyclopedias:

- International Standard Bible Encyclopedia - Apollyon;   Kindred;  

Devotionals:

- Every Day Light - Devotion for June 26;  

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
For how could I bear to see the disaster that would come on my people? How could I bear to see the destruction of my relatives?”
Hebrew Names Version
for how can I endure to see the evil that shall come to my people? or how can I endure to see the destruction of my relatives?
King James Version
For how can I endure to see the evil that shall come unto my people? or how can I endure to see the destruction of my kindred?
English Standard Version
For how can I bear to see the calamity that is coming to my people? Or how can I bear to see the destruction of my kindred?"
New Century Version
I could not stand to see that terrible thing happen to my people. I could not stand to see my family killed."
New English Translation
For how can I watch the calamity that will befall my people, and how can I watch the destruction of my relatives?"
Amplified Bible
"For how can I endure to see the tragedy that will happen to my people? Or how can I endure to see the destruction of my kindred?"
New American Standard Bible
"For how can I endure to see the disaster which will happen to my people, and how can I endure to see the destruction of my kindred?"
World English Bible
for how can I endure to see the evil that shall come to my people? or how can I endure to see the destruction of my relatives?
Geneva Bible (1587)
For how can I suffer and see the euil, that shall come vnto my people? Or howe can I suffer and see the destruction of my kinred?
Legacy Standard Bible
For how can I endure to see the calamity which will befall my people, and how can I endure to see the perishing of my kinsmen?"
Berean Standard Bible
For how could I bear to see the disaster that would befall my people? How could I bear to see the destruction of my kindred?"
Contemporary English Version
and I can't bear to see my people and my own relatives destroyed."
Complete Jewish Bible
For how can I bear to see the disaster that will overcome my people? How can I endure seeing the extermination of my kinsmen?"
Darby Translation
For how shall I endure to see the evil that shall befall my people? and how shall I endure to see the destruction of my kindred?
Easy-to-Read Version
I am begging the king because I could not bear to see these terrible things happen to my people. I could not bear to see my family killed."
George Lamsa Translation
For how can I endure to see the calamity that shall come to my people? Or how can I endure to see the destruction of my kindred?
Good News Translation
How can I endure it if this disaster comes on my people, and my own relatives are killed?"
Lexham English Bible
For how can I bear to look on the disaster that will find my people, and how can I bear to look on the destruction of my family?"
Literal Translation
For how shall I be able to look on the evil that shall find my people? Or how shall I be able to look on the slaughter of my kindred?
Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
For how can I se the euell that shal happe vnto my people? and how can I loke vpon the destruction of my kynred?
American Standard Version
for how can I endure to see the evil that shall come unto my people? or how can I endure to see the destruction of my kindred?
Bishop's Bible (1568)
For how can I suffer and see the euill that shall come vnto my people? or how can I beare and loke vpon the destruction of my kindred?
JPS Old Testament (1917)
for how can I endure to see the evil that shall come unto my people? or how can I endure to see the destruction of my kindred?'
King James Version (1611)
For how can I endure to see the euill that shall come vnto my people? Or how can I endure to see the destruction of my kinred?
Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
For how shall I be able to look upon the affliction of my people, and how shall I be able to survive the destruction of my kindred?
English Revised Version
for how can I endure to see the evil that shall come unto my people? or how can I endure to see the destruction of my kindred?
Wycliffe Bible (1395)
for hou schal Y mowe suffre the deth, and the sleyng of my puple?
Update Bible Version
for how can I endure to see the evil that shall come to my people? or how can I endure to see the destruction of my kindred?
Webster's Bible Translation
For how can I endure to see the evil that will come to my people? or how can I endure to see the destruction of my kindred?
New King James Version
For how can I endure to see the evil that will come to my people? Or how can I endure to see the destruction of my countrymen?"
New Living Translation
For how can I endure to see my people and my family slaughtered and destroyed?"
New Life Bible
For how can I stand to see all the trouble that will come to my people? How can I keep on if I see them destroyed?"
New Revised Standard
For how can I bear to see the calamity that is coming on my people? Or how can I bear to see the destruction of my kindred?"
J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
For how can I endure to see the ruin that shall overtake my people? or how can I endure to see the destruction of my kindred?
Douay-Rheims Bible
For how can I endure the murdering and slaughter of my people?
Revised Standard Version
For how can I endure to see the calamity that is coming to my people? Or how can I endure to see the destruction of my kindred?"
Young's Literal Translation
for how do I endure when I have looked on the evil that doth find my people? and how do I endure when I have looked on the destruction of my kindred?'
New American Standard Bible (1995)
"For how can I endure to see the calamity which will befall my people, and how can I endure to see the destruction of my kindred?"

Contextual Overview

3 Then Esther again came before the king, falling down at his feet, and made request to him with weeping, that he would put a stop to the evil purposes of Haman the Agagite and the designs which he had made against the Jews. 4 Then the king put out the rod of gold to Esther, and she got up before the king. 5 And she said, If it is the king's pleasure and if I have his approval and this thing seems right to the king and I am pleasing to him, then let letters be sent giving orders against those which Haman, the son of Hammedatha the Agagite, sent out for the destruction of the Jews in all divisions of the kingdom: 6 For how is it possible for me to see the evil which is to overtake my nation? how may I see the destruction of my people? 7 Then King Ahasuerus said to Esther the queen and to Mordecai the Jew, See now, I have given Esther the family of Haman, and he has come to his death by hanging, because he made an attack on the Jews. 8 So now send a letter about the Jews, writing whatever seems good to you, in the king's name, and stamping it with the king's ring: for a writing signed in the king's name and stamped with the king's ring may not be changed. 9 Then at that time, on the twenty-third day of the third month, which is the month Sivan, the king's scribes were sent for; and everything ordered by Mordecai was put in writing and sent to the Jews and the captains and the rulers and the chiefs of all the divisions of the kingdom from India to Ethiopia, a hundred and twenty-seven divisions, to every division in the writing commonly used there, and to every people in their language, and to the Jews in their writing and their language. 10 The letters were sent in the name of King Ahasuerus and stamped with his ring, and they were taken by men on horseback, going on the quick-running horses used for the king's business, the offspring of his best horses: 11 In these letters the king gave authority to the Jews in every town to come together and make a fight for their lives, and to send death and destruction on the power of any people in any part of the kingdom attacking them or their children or their women, and to take their goods from them by force, 12 On one day in every division of the kingdom of Ahasuerus, that is, on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, the month Adar.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

For how: Genesis 44:34, Jeremiah 4:19, Jeremiah 9:1, Luke 19:41, Luke 19:42, Romans 9:2, Romans 9:3, Romans 10:1

endure to see: Heb. be able that I may see

the evil: Esther 7:4, Nehemiah 2:3

Reciprocal: Genesis 21:16 - Let Joshua 2:12 - that ye will Joshua 2:18 - thy father Esther 4:8 - request Jeremiah 39:6 - before

Cross-References

Genesis 6:16
You are to put a window in the ark, a cubit from the roof, and a door in the side of it, and you are to make it with a lower and second and third floors.
Daniel 6:10
And Daniel, on hearing that the writing had been signed, went into his house; (now he had windows in his room on the roof opening in the direction of Jerusalem;) and three times a day he went down on his knees in prayer and praise before his God, as he had done before.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

For how can I endure to see the evil that shall come unto my people?.... I cannot bear it; it will break my heart; I shall die to see all my people massacred throughout the realm; the thought of it is shocking and shuddering; to see it, intolerable: or "how can I endure to see the destruction of my kindred?" the same thing in different words, and somewhat more express and explanative. She explains the evil coming upon her people of the utter destruction of them, not barely an oppression, but an extermination of them; and she makes use of a word expressive of their relation to her, as more endearing, being her kindred; she and they being, as it were, of the same family, and with whom she could not but sympathize in distress.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Esther 8:6. To see the destruction of my kindred? — She had now informed the king that she was cousin to Mordecai, and consequently a Jewess; and though her own life and that of Mordecai were no longer in danger, Haman being dead, yet the decree that had gone forth was in full force against the Jews; and if not repealed, their destruction would be inevitable.


 
adsfree-icon
Ads FreeProfile