of the month Adar, and slew three hundred men at
Shushan; but on the prey they laid not their hand.

16. But the other Jews that were in the king's provinces gathered
themselves together, and stood for their lives, and had rest from their
enemies, and slew of their foes seventy and five thousand, but they laid
not their hands on the prey,

17. On the thirteenth day of the month Adar; and on the fourteenth day
of the same rested they, and made it a day of feasting and gladness.

18. But the Jews that were at Shushan assembled together on the
thirteenth day thereof, and on the fourteenth thereof; and on the
fifteenth day of the same they rested, and made it a day of feasting and
gladness.

19. Therefore the Jews of the villages, that dwelt in the unwalled
towns, made the fourteenth day of the month Adar a day of gladness and
feasting, and a good day, and of sending portions one to another.

THE FEAST OF PURIM

20. And Mordecai wrote these things, and sent letters unto all the Jews
that were in all the provinces of the king Ahasuerus, both nigh and far,

21. To establish this among them, that they should keep the fourteenth
day of the month Adar, and the fifteenth day of the same, yearly,

22. As the days wherein the Jews rested from their enemies, and the
month which was turned unto them from sorrow to joy, and from mourning
into a good day: that they should make them days of feasting and joy,
and of sending portions one to another, and gifts to the poor.

23. And the Jews undertook to do as they had begun, and as Mordecai had
written unto them;

24. Because Haman the son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, the enemy of all
the Jews, had devised against the Jews to destroy them, and had cast
Pur, that is, the lot, to consume them, and to destroy them;

25. But when Esther came before the king, he commanded by letters that
his wicked device, which he devised against the Jews, should return upon
his own head, and that he and his sons should be hanged on the gallows.

26. Wherefore they called these days Purim after the name of Pur.
Therefore for all the words of this letter, and of that which they had
seen concerning this matter, and which had come unto them,

27. The Jews ordained, and took upon them, and upon their seed, and upon
all such as joined themselves unto them, so as it should not fail, that
they would keep these two days according to their writing, and according
to their appointed time every year;

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