18
The Jews in Susa joined together for self-defense on the fourteenth day and did not rest. But they rested on the fifteenth day with joy and celebration.
19
This is why Jews out in the country celebrate the fourteenth of Adar as a holiday, sending gifts of food to their neighbors, but those who live in the big cities celebrate the fifteenth of Adar as a holiday, sending gifts of food to their neighbors.
20
Mordecai wrote these things down in a scroll and sent copies to the Jews throughout Artaxerxes' kingdom, both near and far away.
21
He made it a rule that Jews keep the fourteenth and fifteenth days of Adar as special days each and every year.
22
They are the days on which the Jews found rest from their enemies. The whole of Adar, the month in which sadness was turned into joy and mournful weeping into a holiday, was to be celebrated as a special time for weddings, for parties, and for sending gifts of food to friends and to the poor.