17. They fought on the thirteenth day of the month of Adar and rested on the fourteenth, and it became a day of feasting and rejoicing.
18. But the Jews in Susa had assembled on the thirteenth and the fourteenth days of the month. They rested on the fifteenth day of the month, and it became a day of feasting and rejoicing.
19. This explains why the rural Jews who live in villages observe the fourteenth day of the month of Adar as a time of rejoicing and feasting. It is a holiday when they send gifts to one another.
20. Mordecai recorded these events and sent letters to all the Jews in all of King Ahasuerus’s provinces, both near and far.
21. He ordered them to celebrate the fourteenth and fifteenth days of the month Adar every year
22. because during those days the Jews got rid of their enemies. That was the month when their sorrow was turned into rejoicing and their mourning into a holiday. They were to be days of feasting, rejoicing, and of sending gifts to one another and the poor.
23. So the Jews agreed to continue the practice they had begun, as Mordecai had written them to do.