1 On the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, the month of Adar, when the king's command and decree were to be carried out, the very day the enemies of the Jews had hoped to overpower them, the tables were turned and the Jews overpowered those who hated them.
2 The Jews assembled in their cities in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus to attack those who sought to harm them. No one could stand against them, because fear of them had seized all the peoples.
3 All the officials of the provinces, the satraps, the governors, and the king's administrators supported the Jews, because fear of Mordecai had seized them.
4 Mordecai was powerful in the palace, and his reputation spread through all the provinces, as the man Mordecai became more and more powerful.
5 The Jews struck down all their enemies with the sword, killing and destroying them, and they did what they pleased to those who hated them.
6 In Susa the citadel the Jews killed and destroyed five hundred men.
7 and Parshandatha, Dalphon, Aspatha,
8 Poratha, Adalia, Aridatha,
9 Parmashta, Arisai, Aridai, and Vaizatha,
10 the ten sons of Haman son of Hammedatha, the enemy of the Jews. But they did not touch the plunder.
11 The number of those killed in Susa the citadel was reported to the king that same day.
12 The king said to Queen Esther, "The Jews have killed and destroyed five hundred men and the ten sons of Haman in Susa the citadel. What must they have done in the rest of the royal provinces! Now what is your petition? It will be granted to you. And what more do you request? It will be done."
13 Esther answered, "If it pleases the king, let the Jews in Susa be permitted to act tomorrow as well, in keeping with today's decree, and let the ten sons of Haman be hanged on the gallows."
14 The king ordered that this be done. A decree was issued in Susa, and Haman's ten sons were hanged.
15 The Jews in Susa assembled again on the fourteenth day of the month of Adar, and they killed three hundred men in Susa. But they did not touch the plunder.
16 The other Jews in the king's provinces also assembled to defend their lives and gained relief from their enemies. They killed seventy-five thousand of those who hated them, but they did not touch the plunder.
17 This happened on the thirteenth day of the month of Adar, and on the fourteenth they rested and made it a day of feasting and joy.
18 The Jews in Susa, however, had assembled on the thirteenth and the fourteenth, so on the fifteenth they rested and made it a day of feasting and joy.
19 That is why rural Jews, who live in villages without walls, observe the fourteenth day of the month of Adar as a day of joy and feasting, a holiday on which they send gifts of food to one another.
20 Mordecai recorded these events and sent letters to all the Jews throughout the provinces of King Ahasuerus, near and far,
21 requiring them to celebrate the fourteenth and fifteenth days of the month of Adar every year
22 as the days when the Jews got relief from their enemies, and as the month when their sorrow was turned into joy and their mourning into a holiday. He told them to observe these as days of feasting and joy, sending food to one another and gifts to the poor.
23 So the Jews accepted as a custom what they had begun to do, as Mordecai had written to them.
24 For Haman 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 crush and destroy them.
25 But when the matter came before the king, he gave written orders that the evil scheme Haman had devised against the Jews should come back on his own head, and that he and his sons should be hanged on the gallows.
26 That is why these days are called Purim, from the word pur. So because of everything written in this letter, and because of what they had seen and what had happened to them,
27 the Jews established the custom and bound themselves, their descendants, and all who joined them, to observe without fail these two days every year, as prescribed and at the set time.
28 These days are to be remembered and observed in every generation, by every family, in every province and every city. These days of Purim must never cease to be celebrated among the Jews, and the memory of them must never die out among their descendants.
29 Then Queen Esther, daughter of Abihail, along with Mordecai the Jew, wrote with full authority to confirm this second letter about Purim.
30 Letters were sent to all the Jews in the hundred and twenty-seven provinces of Ahasuerus's kingdom, with words of peace and truth,
31 to establish these days of Purim at their set times, as Mordecai the Jew and Queen Esther had decreed for them and as they had decreed for themselves and their descendants, concerning their times of fasting and lamentation.
32 Esther's command confirmed these regulations about Purim, and it was recorded in writing.