20. And Mordecai writeth these things, and sendeth letters unto all the Jews who [are] in all provinces of the king Ahasuerus, who are near and who are far off,
21. to establish on them, to be keeping the fourteenth day of the month of Adar, and the fifteenth day of it, in every year and year,
22. as days on which the Jews have rested from their enemies, and the month that hath been turned to them from sorrow to joy, and from mourning to a good day, to make them days of banquet and of joy, and of sending portions one to another, and gifts to the needy.
23. And the Jews have received that which they had begun to do, and that which Mordecai hath written unto them,
24. because Haman son of Hammedatha the Agagite, adversary of all the Jews, had devised concerning the Jews to destroy them, and had caused to fall Pur--that [is] the lot--to crush them and to destroy them;
25. and in her coming in before the king, he said with the letter, `Let his evil device that he devised against the Jews turn back upon his own head,' and they have hanged him and his sons on the tree,
26. therefore they have called these days Purim--by the name of the lot--therefore, because of all the words of this letter, and what they have seen concerning this, and what hath come unto them,
27. the Jews have established and received upon them, and upon their seed, and upon all those joined unto them, and it doth not pass away, to be keeping these two days according to their writing, and according to their season, in every year and year;