Welcome back to the Jesse Tree on the Catholic Sprouts podcast. Today is Friday of the third week of

Advent. Roughly 100 years after Daniels slept next to lions in the Babylonian Empire,

the Israelites still lived in captivity away from their homeland. The only change was that the Babylonian Empire had been

replaced by the Persian Empire. The Persians were also pagan, and they too mistreated God's people.

In their suffering, the Israelites called out to God, and he once again heard their cry.

To rescue them, God sent an unlikely hero, Queen Esther.

Listen now to the story of Queen Esther found in the book of Esther.

Esther 14, 1 through 4, 15, 1 to 2, 5 through 8, 5, 3 through 4, 7, 1 through 6.

Then Queen Esther, seized with deadly anxiety, fled to the Lord.

She took off her splendid apparel and put on the garments of distress and mourning,

and instead of costly perfumes, she covered her head with ashes and dung, and she utterly humbled her body. Every part that she loved to adorn she covered with her tangled hair. She prayed to the Lord God of Israel, and said,

O my Lord, you only are our king, help me, who am alone and have no helper but you, for danger is in my hand. On the third day, when she ended her prayer, she took off the garments in

which she had worshipped, and arrayed herself in splendid attire. Then, majestically adorned,

after invoking the aid of the all-seeing God and Savior, she

was radiant with perfect beauty, and she looked happy, as if beloved, but her heart was

frozen with fear.

When she had gone through all the doors, she stood before the king.

He was seated on his royal throne, clothed in the full array of his majesty, all covered

with gold and precious stones.

He was most terrifying. Lifting his face, flushed with splendor, he looked at her in fierce anger.

The queen faltered and turned pale and faint and collapsed on the head of the maid who went in front of her.

Then God changed the spirit of the king to gentleness,

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