the number
of those that were slain in that city, but did not well know what had
been done in the provinces, he asked her whether she would have any
thing further done against them, for that it should be done accordingly:
upon which she desired that the Jews might be permitted to treat their
remaining enemies in the same manner the next day; as also that they
might hang the ten sons of Haman upon the gallows. So the king permitted
the Jews so to do, as desirous not to contradict Esther. So they
gathered themselves together again on the fourteenth day of the month
Dystrus, and slew about three hundred of their enemies, but touched
nothing of what riches they had. Now there were slain by the Jews that
were in the country, and in the other cities, seventy-five thousand of
their enemies, and these were slain on the thirteenth day of the month,
and the next day they kept as a festival. In like manner the Jews
that were in Shushan gathered themselves together, and feasted on the
fourteenth day, and that which followed it; whence it is that even now
all the Jews that are in the habitable earth keep these days festival,
and send portions to one another. Mordecai also wrote to the Jews that
lived in the kingdom of Artaxerxes to observe these days, and celebrate
them as festivals, and to deliver them down to posterity, that this
festival might continue for all time to come, and that it might never be
buried in oblivion; for since they were about to be destroyed on these
days by Haman, they would do a right thing, upon escaping the danger
in them, and on them inflicting punishment on their enemies, to observe
those days, and give thanks to God on them; for which cause the Jews
still keep the forementioned days, and call them days of Phurim [or
Purim.] [21] And Mordecai became a great and illustrious person with the
king, and assisted him in the government of the people. He also lived
with the queen; so that the affairs of the Jews were, by their means,
better than they could ever have hoped for. And this was the state of
the Jews under the reign of Artaxerxes.

CHAPTER 7. How John Slew His Brother Jesus In The Temple; And How
Bagoses Offered Many Injuries To The Jews; And What Sanballat Did.

1. When Eliashib the high priest was dead, his son Judas succeeded
in the high priesthood; and when he was dead, his son John took that
dignity; on whose account it was also that Bagoses, the general of
another Artaxerxes's army, [22