Esther Chapter 9    

¹Now in the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar, on the thirteenth day of the month, when the king’s command and his decree were about to be carried out, on the day that the enemies of the Jews hoped to overpower them, just the opposite happened: the Jews overpowered those who hated them.
  ²The Jews gathered together in their cities throughout all the provinces of the King Ahasuerus to lay hands on those who wanted to harm them. And no one could stand against them, because the fear of them had fallen on all the people.
 

³And all the officials of the provinces, the satraps, the governors and those who were doing the king’s business helped the Jews, because the fear of Mordecai had fallen on them.
  ⁴For Mordecai was great in the king’s house, and his fame went out throughout all the provinces; for the man Mordecai grew greater and greater.
 

⁵The Jews struck all their enemies with the stroke of the sword; even killing and destroying them, and did as they pleased with those who hated them.
  ⁶In the palace-fortress of Susa the Jews killed and destroyed 500 men.
  ⁷And they killed Parshandatha, and Dalphon, and Aspatha,
  ⁸and Poratha, and Adalia, and Aridatha,
  ⁹and Parmashta, and Arisai, and Aridai, and Vaizatha,
  ¹⁰the ten sons of Haman the son of Hammedatha, the enemy of the Jews. But they didn’t lay their hand on the plunder.
 

¹¹On that day, the number of those who were killed in the palace-fortress of Susa was reported to the king.
  ¹²And the king said to Queen Esther, “The Jews have killed and destroyed 500 men in the palace-fortress of Susa, including the ten sons of Haman; what then have they done in the rest of the king’s provinces! Now what is your petition? It will be granted you. And what further is your request? It also will be done.”
 

¹³Then Esther said, “If it pleases the king, let the Jews who are in Shushan be permitted to do also tomorrow according to this day’s decree, and let Haman’s ten sons be impaled on stakes.”
  ¹⁴So the king commanded that to be done. A decree was issued in Susa, and they impaled Haman’s ten sons.
  ¹⁵The Jews who were in Susa also gathered together on the fourteenth day of the month Adar, and killed 300 men in Susa; but they didn’t lay their hand on the plunder.
 

¹⁶And the rest of the Jews, who were in the king’s provinces, had gathered together to defend their lives and had rest from their enemies. And they killed 75,000 of those who hated them, but they didn’t lay their hand on the plunder.
  ¹⁷This was done on the thirteenth day of the month Adar; and on the fourteenth day of that month they rested and made it a day of feasting and gladness.
 

¹⁸But the Jews who were in Susa assembled together on the thirteenth and on the fourteenth days of the month; and on the fifteenth day of that month they rested, and made it a day of feasting and gladness.
  ¹⁹This is why the Jews in the villages, who live in the unwalled towns, make the fourteenth day of the month Adar a day of gladness and feasting, a good day, and a day of sending presents of food to one another.
 

²⁰And Mordecai wrote these things down and sent letters to all the Jews who were in all the provinces of the king Ahasuerus, both near and far,
  ²¹to establish for them that they should keep the fourteenth and fifteenth days of the month Adar always, year after year,
  ²²because in those days the Jews obtained rest from their enemies, and it was a month that was turned for them from sorrow to gladness and from mourning into a good day. They were to be days of feasting and gladness, and of sending presents of food to one another, and gifts to the needy.
 

²³And the Jews took it upon themselves to continue what they had begun, as Mordecai had written to them;
  ²⁴because 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 the lot), to discomfort and to destroy them;
  ²⁵but when this became known to the king, he commanded by letters that his wicked plot that he had plotted against the Jews should return on his own head, and that he and his sons should be impaled on stakes.
  ²⁶Therefore they called these days “Purim,” from the word “Pur.” Therefore because of all that was written in this letter, and of what they had faced in this matter, and what had happened to them,
  ²⁷the Jews established, and took it upon themselves and on their descendants and on all those who joined themselves to them, that without fail they would keep those two days according to what was written and at the appointed time every year;
  ²⁸and that those days would be remembered and kept throughout each and every generation, every family, every province, and every city; and that these days of Purim were not to cease among the Jews, nor their memory die out among their seed.
 

²⁹Then Queen Esther, the daughter of Abihail, and Mordecai the Jew, gave full written authority confirming this second letter about Purim.
  ³⁰He sent letters to all the Jews, to the 127 provinces of the kingdom of Ahasuerus, in words of peace and truth,
  ³¹to establish these days of Purim at their appointed times as Mordecai the Jew and Queen Esther had established, and as they had established for themselves and their descendants in the matter of fasting and their lamentation.
  ³²Esther’s command confirmed these matters of Purim, and it was written in a scroll.