If you keep quiet at a time like this, help will come from heaven to the Jews, and they will be saved, but you will die and your father's family will come to an end. Yet who knows---maybe it was for a time like this that you were made queen!"

He lifts the poor from the dust and raises the needy from their misery. He makes them companions of princes and puts them in places of honor. The foundations of the earth belong to the LORD; on them he has built the world.

Judgment does not come from the east or from the west, from the north or from the south;

it is God who is the judge, condemning some and acquitting others.

He raises the poor from the dust; he lifts the needy from their misery

and makes them companions of princes, the princes of his people.

All the trees in the land will know that I am the LORD. I cut down the tall trees and make small trees grow tall. I wither up the green trees and make the dry trees become green. I, the LORD, have spoken. I will do what I have said I would do."

for he has remembered me, his lowly servant! From now on all people will call me happy,

from one generation to another he shows mercy to those who honor him.

He has brought down mighty kings from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly.