1 ¶ Now in the twelfth month, that is, the month Adar, on the thirteenth day of the month, when the king’s commandment and his decree were about to be executed, on the day that the enemies of the Jews hoped to have power over them, (although it was reversed, so that the Jews got control over those who hated them;)

2 The Jews gathered together in their cities throughout all the provinces of the king Ahasuerus, to strike at any who sought to hurt them: and no man could stand against them; for all the people were now afraid of them.

3 And all the rulers of the provinces, and the lieutenants, and the deputies, and officers of the king, helped the Jews; because they were afraid of Mordecai.

4 For Mordecai was great in the king’s palace, and his fame went out throughout all the provinces: for the man Mordecai grew more and more powerful.

5 Thus the Jews defeated all their enemies with the sword, slaughtering, and destroying them, and doing what they pleased to those who hated them.

6 And in Shushan the capital the Jews killed and destroyed five hundred men.

7 And they killed Parshandatha, and Dalphon, and Aspatha,

8 And Poratha, and Adalia, and Aridatha,

9 And Parmashta, and Arisai, and Aridai, and Vajezatha,

10 The ten sons of Haman the son of Hammedatha, the enemy of the Jews; but they did not take any of their goods.

11 On that day the number of those who were killed in Shushan the capital was reported to the king.

12 And the king said to Esther the queen, The Jews have killed and destroyed five hundred men in Shushan the capital, plus the ten sons of Haman; what have they done in the rest of the king’s provinces? now what is your request? it will be granted: and what more do you want? it will be done.

13 Then Esther said, If it please the king, let it also be granted to the Jews who are in Shushan to do tomorrow what was decreed for today, and let Haman’s ten sons be hanged upon the gallows.

14 And the king commanded it to be done: and the decree was issued in Shushan; and they hanged Haman’s ten sons.

15 For the Jews who were in Shushan also gathered together on the fourteenth day of the month Adar, and killed three hundred men in Shushan; but did not take any of their goods.

16 The other Jews who were in the king’s provinces also gathered together, to defend their lives, and get relief from their enemies, and killed seventy-five thousand of their foes, but they did not take any of their goods,

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

18 But the Jews who were at Shushan assembled on both the thirteenth and fourteenth day of the month; and on the fifteenth day of the month they rested, and made it a day of feasting and gladness.

19 Therefore the Jews of the villages, who lived in the unwalled towns, made the fourteenth day of the month Adar a day of gladness and feasting, and a holiday when they send portions of food to one another.

20 ¶ And Mordecai recorded these things, and sent letters to all the Jews that were in all the provinces of the king Ahasuerus, both near 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 in which the Jews got relief from their enemies, and the month when their grief was turned from sorrow to joy, and from mourning to a time of happiness: that they should make them days of feasting and joy, when they send portions of food to one another, and gifts to the poor.

23 So the Jews continued to do what they had started, and as Mordecai had written to them;

24 Because 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 crush and destroy them;

25 But when Esther came before the king, he commanded in writing that Haman’s wicked scheme, which he had devised against the Jews, should return upon his own head, and that he and his sons should be hanged on the gallows.

26 Therefore they called these days Purim after the name of Pur. Because of all that was written in this letter, as well as what they had witnessed concerning this matter, and what had happened to them,

27 The Jews established it, and bound themselves, and their descendants, and all who joined themselves to them, that without fail, that they would keep these two days as it was written, at the appointed time every year;

28 And that these days should be remembered and kept throughout every generation, every family, every province, and every city; and that these days of Purim should not cease from among the Jews, nor the commemoration of them cease among their descendants.

29 Then Esther the queen, the daughter of Abihail, and Mordecai the Jew, wrote this second letter with all authority, to confirm the letter about Purim.

30 And he sent the letters to all the Jews, in the one hundred and twenty-seven provinces of the kingdom of Ahasuerus, in words of peace and truth,

31 To confirm that these days of Purim be observed at the appointed times, as Mordecai the Jew and Esther the queen had directed, and as they had laid down the rules for themselves and for their descendants, in regard to fasting and weeping.

32 And the decree of Esther confirmed this matter of Purim; and it was written in the book.

Esther Chapter 10

1 ¶ And the king Ahasuerus laid a tribute upon the land, and upon the isles of the sea.

2 And all the acts of his power and of his might, and the full account of the greatness of Mordecai, to which the king advanced him, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Media and Persia?

3 For Mordecai the Jew was next to king Ahasuerus, and great among the Jews, and well liked by the multitude of his brethren, seeking the welfare of his people, and speaking peace to all his kindred.