1 Now in the twelfth month, that is, the month of Adar, on the thirteenth day, the time came for the kings command and his decree to be executed. On the day that the enemies of the Jews had hoped to overpower them, the opposite occurred, in that the Jews themselves overpowered those who hated them.
2 The Jews gathered together in their cities throughout all the provinces of King Ahasuerus to lay hands on those who sought their harm. And no one could withstand them, because fear of them fell upon all the people.
3 And all the rulers of the provinces, the satraps, the governors, and all those doing the kings work, helped the Jews, because the fear of Mordecai fell upon them.
4 For Mordecai was great in the kings house, and his fame spread throughout all the provinces; for this man Mordecai proceeded on into greatness.
5 Thus the Jews struck down all their enemies with the stroke of the sword, with slaughter and destruction, and did what they pleased with those who hated them.
6 And in Shushan the palace the Jews killed and destroyed five hundred men.
7 Also Parshandatha, Dalphon, Aspatha,
8 Poratha, Adalia, Aridatha,
9 Parmashta, Arisai, Aridai, and Vajezatha;
10 the ten sons of Haman the son of Hammedatha, the enemy of the Jews; they killed; but they did not lay a hand on the spoils.
11 On that day the number of those who were killed in Shushan the palace was brought before the king.
12 And the king said to Queen Esther, The Jews have killed and destroyed five hundred men in Shushan the palace, and the ten sons of Haman. What have they done in the rest of the kings provinces? Now what is your petition? It shall be granted to you. Or what is your further request? It shall be done.
13 Then Esther said, If it pleases the king, let it be granted to the Jews who are in Shushan to do again tomorrow according to todays decree, and let Hamans ten sons be hanged on the gallows.
14 So the king commanded this to be done; the decree was issued in Shushan, and they hanged Hamans ten sons.
15 And the Jews who were in Shushan gathered together again on the fourteenth day of the month of Adar and killed three hundred men at Shushan; but they did not lay a hand on the spoils.
16 The remainder of the Jews in the kings provinces gathered together and took a stand for their souls, had rest from their enemies, and killed seventy-five thousand of their enemies; but they did not lay a hand on the spoils.
17 This was on the thirteenth day of the month of Adar. And on the fourteenth day of the month they rested and made it a day of feasting and gladness.
18 But the Jews who were at Shushan assembled together on the thirteenth day, as well as on the fourteenth; and on the fifteenth of the month they rested, and made it a day of feasting and gladness.
19 Therefore the Jews of the villages who dwelt in the unwalled towns made the fourteenth day of the month of Adar a day of gladness and feasting, as a good day, and for sending portions to one another.
20 And Mordecai wrote these things and sent letters to all the Jews, near and far, who were in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus,
21 to establish among them that they should celebrate yearly the fourteenth and fifteenth days of the month of Adar,
22 as the days on which the Jews had rest from their enemies, as the month which was turned from sorrow to joy for them, and from mourning to a good day; that they should make them days of feasting and joy, of sending portions to one another and gifts to the needy.
23 So the Jews undertook to do as they had begun, as Mordecai had written to them,
24 because Haman, the son of Hammedatha the Agagite, the enemy of all the Jews, had plotted against the Jews to exterminate them, and had cast Pur (that is, the lot), to destroy them and to exterminate them;
25 but when Esther came before the king, he commanded by letter that this evil plot which Haman had devised against the Jews should return upon his own head, and that he and his sons should be hanged on the gallows.
26 Therefore they called these days Purim, after the name Pur. Therefore, because of all the words of this letter, what they had seen concerning this matter, and what had happened to them,
27 the Jews established and took it upon themselves and their seed and all who would join them, that without fail they should celebrate these two days year after year, according to the writing and according to the appointed time;
28 that these days should be remembered and kept from generation to generation, by every family, in every province and every city, that these days of Purim should not pass away among the Jews, and that the memory of them should not cease among their seed.
29 Then Queen Esther, the daughter of Abihail, with Mordecai the Jew, wrote with full authority to confirm this second letter about Purim.
30 And Mordecai sent letters to all the Jews in the one hundred and twenty-seven provinces of the kingdom of Ahasuerus, with words of peace and truth,
31 to confirm these days of Purim at their appointed time, as Mordecai the Jew and Queen Esther had established for them, and as they had decreed for themselves and their seed, concerning the matters of their fasting and of their cry.
32 So the decree of Esther confirmed these matters about Purim, and it was written in the book.