3 Maccabees 6:36-38

Common English Bible

³⁶ They decided that this would be a holiday to be observed for generations to come by the Jewish community living in exile there. The festival would be kept in a spirit of celebration, not as an excuse for overeating and getting drunk but because of the rescue that God had accomplished for them. ³⁷ They appealed to the king, asking for his permission to return to their homes.

³⁸ The drawing up of the lists of names was conducted from the twenty-fifth of Pachon^[a] to the fourth of Epiphi,^[b] over a period of forty days; and their destruction was planned for the fifth of Epiphi until the seventh, a period of three days.