When Esther feared approaching her husband, the king of Persia, to stop an evil plot to destroy the Jews in the Persian Empire, her cousin Mordecai gave her a brilliant response,

And Mordecai told them to answer Esther: “Do not think in your heart that you will escape in the king’s palace any more than all the other Jews. For if you remain completely silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:13–14).

He made her think about her situation:

1. She would not escape the extermination order.
2. Deliverance from the Jews would arise from another place.
3. She and her father’s house would go down in shame.
4. She may have been placed in the kingdom for this very purpose.

She could not resist those words, and she did as her cousin requested, and she saved the Jews, and changed the heart of the king.