Esther 9:9-24
English Standard Version
Chapter 9
9and Parmashta and Arisai and Aridai and Vaizatha, 10the ten sons of Haman the son of Hammedatha, the enemy of the Jews, but they laid no hand on the plunder.
11That very day the number of those killed in Susa the citadel was reported to the king.
12And the king said to Queen Esther, "In Susa the citadel the Jews have killed and destroyed 500 men and also the ten sons of Haman. What then have they done in the rest of the king 's provinces! Now what is your wish? It shall be granted you. And what further is your request? It shall be fulfilled."
13And Esther said, "If it please the king, let the Jews who are in Susa be allowed tomorrow also to do according to this day 's edict. And let the ten sons of Haman be hanged on the gallows."
14So the king commanded this to be done. A decree was issued in Susa, and the ten sons of Haman were hanged.
15The Jews who were in Susa gathered also on the fourteenth day of the month of Adar and they killed 300 men in Susa, but they laid no hands on the plunder.
16Now the rest of the Jews who were in the king 's provinces also gathered to defend their lives, and got relief from their enemies and killed 75,000 of those who hated them, but they laid no hands on the plunder.
17This was on the thirteenth day of the month of Adar, and on the fourteenth day they rested and made that a day of feasting and gladness.
18But the Jews who were in Susa gathered on the thirteenth day and on the fourteenth, and rested on the fifteenth day, making that a day of feasting and gladness.
19Therefore the Jews of the villages, who live in the rural towns, hold the fourteenth day of the month of Adar as a day for gladness and feasting, as a holiday, and as a day on which they send gifts of food to one another.
20And Mordecai recorded these things and sent letters to all the Jews who were in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus, both near and far,
21obliging them to keep the fourteenth day of the month Adar and also the fifteenth day of the same, year by year,
22as the days on which the Jews got relief from their enemies, and as the month that had been turned for them from sorrow into gladness and from mourning into a holiday; that they should make them days of feasting and gladness, days for sending gifts of food to one another and gifts to the poor.
