10. the ten sons of Haman, the son of Hammedatha, the enemy of the Jews; but they did not touch the plunder.
11. On that day the number of those being killed in the citadel of Susa was reported to the king.
12. And the king said to Queen Esther, “In the citadel of Susa the Jews killed and destroyed five hundred men and the ten sons of Haman. What have they done in the rest of the king’s provinces? What is your petition? It will be granted to you. And what further is your request? It will be done.”
13. Esther replied, “If it is good to the king, let tomorrow also be granted to the Jews who are in Susa to do according to the edict of today; and let them hang Haman’s ten sons on the gallows.”
14. And the king said to do so. And a decree was issued in Susa and Haman’s ten sons were hanged.
15. And the Jews were gathered who were in Susa, and on the fourteenth day of the month of Adar and they killed in Susa three hundred men, but they did not touch the plunder.
16. The rest of the Jews who were in the king’s provinces gathered and defended their lives and found repose from their enemies. And they killed seventy-five thousand of those that hated them, but they did not touch the plunder.
17. This was on the thirteenth day of the month of Adar. They rested on the fourteenth day and made it a day of feasting and joy.
18. But the Jews who were in Susa gathered on the thirteenth and on the fourteenth day, and rested on the fifteenth day. And they made it a day of feasting and joy.
19. Therefore the Jews in the rural areas, living in the rural towns, made the fourteenth month of Adar a day of joy and feasting, a festive day of giving gifts to each other.
20. Mordecai wrote down these things and he sent letters to all the Jews who were in all of the provinces of King Ahasuerus, both near and far,
21. to impose on them to keep the fourteenth day of the month of Adar, and the fifteenth day, every year,
22. as the day that the Jews found relief from their enemies, and the month which changed for them from sorrow to joy, and from a mourning ceremony to a festive day; to make them days of feasting and joy, and giving gifts to each other and to the poor.
23. And the Jews adopted what they had begun to do and what Mordecai had written to them.