19. That is why Jews who live in villages make the fourteenth day of the month of Adar a day of rejoicing and feasts, a holiday. It is a day on which they send gifts of food to each other.
20. Mordecai wrote these things down and sent letters to all the Jews in all the provinces, both near and far, of King Ahasuerus.
21. He made it a rule that Jews keep the fourteenth and fifteenth days of the month of Adar as special days each and every year.
22. They are the days on which the Jews finally put to rest the troubles with their enemies. The month is the one when everything turned around for them from sadness to joy, and from sad, loud crying to a holiday. They are to make them days of feasts and joyous events, days to send food gifts to each other and money gifts to the poor.