1In the twelfth month, that is, the month Adar, on the thirteenth day of that month, the king's command and his decree were about to be carried out. It was the day when the enemies of the Jews hoped to have power over them. But it turned out the other way round: the Jews had power over those who hated them.
2The Jews gathered together in their cities throughout all the provinces of King Ahasuerus, to attack those who wanted to harm them. No one could stand against them, for the fear of them fell on all the peoples.
3All the rulers of the provinces, and the governors, and the deputies, and the king's officers helped the Jews, because the fear of Mordecai had fallen on them.
4For Mordecai was great in the king's house, and his fame spread through all the provinces. This man Mordecai grew greater and greater.
5So the Jews struck all their enemies with the sword. They killed and destroyed, and did as they pleased to those who hated them.
6In Shushan the palace the Jews killed and destroyed five hundred men.
7They also killed Parshandatha, and Dalphon, and Aspatha,
8and Poratha, and Adalia, and Aridatha,
9and Parmashta, and Arisai, and Aridai, and Vajezatha,
10the ten sons of Haman the son of Hammedatha, the enemy of the Jews. But they did not lay a hand on the goods they could have taken.
11On that day the number of those killed in Shushan the palace was reported to the king.
12The king said to Esther the queen, "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 king's provinces? Now what do you ask for? It will be given to you. What more do you request? It will be done."
13Then Esther said, "If it pleases the king, let the Jews in Shushan be allowed to do tomorrow also what this day's decree allowed. And let Haman's ten sons be hanged on the gallows."
14The king commanded that this be done. The decree was given at Shushan, and they hanged Haman's ten sons.
15The Jews in Shushan gathered together on the fourteenth day of the month Adar as well, and killed three hundred men at Shushan. But they did not lay a hand on the goods they could have taken.
16The other Jews in the king's provinces gathered together and defended their lives. They had rest from their enemies, and killed seventy-five thousand of those who hated them. But they did not lay their hands on the goods they could have taken.
17This was on the thirteenth day of the month Adar. On the fourteenth day of the same month they rested, and made it a day of feasting and gladness.
18But the Jews at Shushan gathered together on the thirteenth day and on the fourteenth day. On the fifteenth day of the same month they rested, and made it a day of feasting and gladness.
19That is why the Jews of the countryside, who lived in towns without walls, made the fourteenth day of the month Adar a day of gladness and feasting, a good day, when they send food to one another.
20Mordecai wrote these things down, and sent letters to all the Jews in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus, both near and far,
21telling them to keep the fourteenth day of the month Adar and the fifteenth day of the same month every year.
22These were the days when the Jews got rest from their enemies. This was the month that was turned for them from sorrow to joy, and from mourning into a good day. They were to make them days of feasting and joy, of sending food to one another, and gifts to the poor.
23So the Jews agreed to go on doing what they had begun, and what Mordecai had written to them.
24For Haman the son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, the enemy of all the Jews, had plotted against the Jews to destroy them. He had cast Pur, that is, the lot, to crush them and destroy them.
25But when Esther came before the king, he commanded by letters that Haman's wicked plot, which he had planned against the Jews, should come back on his own head, and that he and his sons should be hanged on the gallows.
26That is why they called these days Purim, after the name Pur. So because of all the words of this letter, and because of what they had seen about this matter, and what had happened to them,
27the Jews made a rule, and took it on themselves, and on their children, and on all who joined themselves to them, that it should not fail: they would keep these two days as it was written, at the appointed time, every year.
28These days were to be remembered and kept in every generation, by every family, in every province, and in every city. These days of Purim were not to be lost among the Jews, and the memory of them was not to die out among their children.
29Then Esther the queen, the daughter of Abihail, and Mordecai the Jew, wrote with full authority to confirm this second letter about Purim.
30He sent the letters to all the Jews, to the hundred and twenty-seven provinces of the kingdom of Ahasuerus, with words of peace and truth,
31to confirm these days of Purim at their appointed times, just as Mordecai the Jew and Esther the queen had commanded them, and as they had decided for themselves and for their children, about the fasting and their crying out.
32The decree of Esther confirmed these matters of Purim, and it was written in the book.