12. The king said to Queen Esther, “The Jews have slain and destroyed five hundred men in the citadel of Susa and the ten sons of Haman. What have they done in the rest of the king’s provinces? Now what is your petition? It shall be granted you! What is your request further? It shall be done!”
13. Then Esther said, “If it pleases the king, let it be granted to the Jews in Susa to do again tomorrow according to this day’s decree. Let the ten sons of Haman be hanged on the gallows.”
14. So the king commanded that it be so done, and the decree was given at Susa, and they hanged the ten sons of Haman.
15. The Jews in Susa assembled again on the fourteenth day of the month Adar and killed three hundred more there, but on the plunder no one attempted to take it.
16. But the rest of the Jews in the king’s provinces assembled to defend their lives. Some had rest from their enemies, while others killed seventy-five thousand of those who hated them, but no one took from the plunder.
17. Because this occurred on the thirteenth day of the month Adar, they rested on the fourteenth day and made it a day of feasting and rejoicing.
18. Because the Jews in Susa had assembled on the thirteenth day and the fourteenth day of Adar, then on the fifteenth day they rested and made it a day of feasting and rejoicing.
19. Therefore, the Jews of the rural areas, who were living in the villages, made the fourteenth day of the month Adar a day of rejoicing and feasting and a special day for sending portions of food to one another.
20. Mordecai recorded these events and sent letters to all the Jews throughout all the provinces of King Ahasuerus, both near and far,
21. in order to institute for them the celebration for the fourteenth day and the fifteenth day of the month of Adar, each and every year,
22. like the days when the Jews had rest from their enemies, and like the month when things turned around for them—changing from sorrow to joy and from mourning into a favorable day—so that they could celebrate a season of feasting and rejoicing and sending food portions to one another and gifts to the poor.
23. So the Jews accepted what had begun as tradition as Mordecai had written to them.
24. Haman, the son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, the enemy of all the Jews, had plotted against the Jews to destroy them, and had cast Pur (that is, cast lots), to crush and destroy them.
25. But when Esther came before the king, he ordered by letter that the wicked plot which Haman had devised against the Jews should come upon his own head, and that he and his sons should be hanged on the gallows.
26. Therefore, they call these days Purim on the basis of the name Pur. Furthermore, based on all the information of this letter, along with what they had seen in this regard and what had happened to them,
27. the Jews instituted and accepted as tradition for themselves, for their descendants, and for all joining with them not to fail in observing the celebration of these two days as prescribed and as specified in each and every year.