18
But the Jews that [were] at Shushan assembled on the thirteenth [day] of the month, and on the fourteenth of it: and on the fifteenth [day] of the same they rested, and made it a day of feasting and gladness.
19
Therefore the Jews of the villages, that dwelt in the unwalled towns, made the fourteenth day of the month Adar [a day of] gladness and feasting, and a good day, and of sending portions one to another.
20
And Mordecai wrote these things, and sent letters to all the Jews that [were] in all the provinces of the king Ahasuerus, [both] nigh and far,
21
To establish [this] among them, that they should keep the fourteenth day of the month Adar, and the fifteenth day of the same, yearly,
22
As the days in which the Jews rested from their enemies, and the month which was turned to them from sorrow to joy, and from mourning into a good day, that they should make them days of feasting and joy, and of sending portions one to another, and gifts to the poor.
23
And the Jews undertook to do as they had begun, and as Mordecai had written to them;
24
Because Haman the son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, the enemy of all the Jews, had devised against the Jews to destroy them, and had cast Pur, that [is], the lot, to consume them, and to destroy them;
25
But when [Esther] came before the king, he commanded by letters that his wicked device, which he devised against the Jews, should return upon his own head, and that he and his sons should be hanged on the gallows.
26
Wherefore they called these days Purim after the name of Pur. Therefore for all the words of this letter, and [of that] which they had seen concerning this matter, and which had come to them,
27
The Jews ordained, and took upon them, and upon their seed, and upon all such as joined themselves to them, so as it should not fail, that they would keep these two days according to their writing, and according to their [appointed] time every year;
28
And [that] these days [should be] remembered and kept throughout every generation, every family, every province, and every city; and [that] these days of Purim should not fail from among the Jews, nor the memorial of them perish from their seed.