Esther 9:18-32

21st Century King James Version

¹⁸ But the Jews who 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 who dwelt in the unwalled towns made the fourteenth day of the month of Adar a day of gladness and feasting, and a good day, and of sending portions one to another.

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

²¹ to establish this among them: that they should keep the fourteenth day of the month of 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 schemed 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 this wicked scheme which Haman 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 [that is, Lot]. Therefore for all the words of this letter, and of that which they had seen concerning this matter and what had come upon them,

²⁷ the Jews ordained and took upon them and upon their seed and upon all such as joined themselves unto them, that without fail they would keep these two days according to their writing and according to their 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 pass from among the Jews, nor the memorial of them perish from their seed.

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

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

³¹ to confirm these days of Purim in their times appointed, according as Mordecai the Jew and Esther the queen had enjoined them, and as they had decreed for themselves and for their seed regarding the matters of the fastings and their cry.

³² And the decree of Esther confirmed these matters of Purim, and it was written in the book.