¹In the twelfth month, that is the month of Adar, on the thirteenth day of it, when the word of the king and his law drew near to be done, on the day when the enemies of the Jews had hoped to dominate them, it was turned about, so that the Jews themselves dominated those who hated them.

²The Jews assembled in their cities in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus to stretch out hand in those who searched their evil, and no man stood to their face, for their fear fell over all the peoples.

³And all the officials of the provinces and the satraps and the governors, and those who make the work which to the king, were lifting up the Jews, for the fear of Mordecai fell over them.

⁴For Mordecai was great in the house of the king, and his fame went in all the provinces; for the man Mordecai went and became great.

⁵The Jews struck down all their enemies with the blow of the sword, with slaughter and destruction, and did as they pleased to those who hated them.

⁶And in Susa the citadel the Jews killed and destroyed five hundred men.

⁷and Parshandatha, and Dalphon, and Aspatha,

⁸and Poratha, and Adalia, and Aridatha,

⁹and Parmashta, and Arisai, and Aridai, and Vaizatha,

¹⁰the ten sons of Haman son of Hammedatha, the one who pressed hard on the Jews, they killed; but on the plunder they did not stretch out their hand.

¹¹On that day the number of those killed in Susa the citadel came before the king.

¹²The king said to Esther the queen, "In Susa the citadel the Jews have killed and destroyed five hundred men, and the ten sons of Haman. What have they done in the rest of the king's provinces? And what is your petition? It shall be given to you. And what is your request besides? It shall be done."

¹³And Esther said, "If it is good to the king, let it be given also tomorrow to the Jews who are in Susa to do according to the law of this day, and let the ten sons of Haman hang on the wood."

¹⁴The king said it should be done so; and a law was given in Susa, and the ten sons of Haman were hanged.

¹⁵The Jews who were in Susa also assembled on the fourteenth day of the month of Adar, and killed three hundred men in Susa; but on the plunder they did not stretch out their hand.

¹⁶And the remnant of the Jews which are in the provinces of the king assembled and stood over their living being, and resting-place from their enemies, and killed in those who hated them five and seventy thousand; but in the plunder they did not stretch out their hand.

¹⁷In the day of three teen to the month of Adar; and they settled in four teen in it, and made it a day of feast and gladness.

¹⁸But the Jews who were in Susa assembled on the thirteenth of it and on the fourteenth of it, and rested on the fifteenth of it, and made it a day of feast and gladness.

¹⁹Therefore the Jews, the villagers who live in the towns of the open country, observe the fourteenth day of the month of Adar with gladness and feasting, as a good day, and with the sending of portions, each man to his neighbor.

²⁰Mordecai wrote these words, and sent letters to all the Jews who were in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus, near and far,

²¹to establish it upon them, that they be observing the fourteenth day of the month of Adar and the fifteenth day of it, in each and every year,

²²as the days on which the Jews rested from their enemies, and the month that was turned for them from sorrow into gladness and from mourning into a good day, to make them days of feast and gladness, and of sending portions each man to his neighbor, and gifts to the needy.

²³The Jews accepted what they had begun to do, and what Mordecai had written to them.

²⁴For Haman son of Hammedatha the Agagite, who pressed hard on all the Jews, planned against the Jews to destroy them, and cast the Pur, that is, the lot, to throw them into confusion and destroy them.

²⁵But in her coming before the king, he said with the record, Let his evil thought, which he reckoned over the Jews, return over his head; and they hung him and his sons over the wood.

²⁶Therefore they called these days Purim, after the name of Pur. And so, because of all the words of this letter, and what they had seen concerning this, and what had reached them,

²⁷The Jews imposed it and accepted it upon themselves, and upon their seed, and upon all who joined themselves to them, that it will not pass away: to be keeping these two days according to their writing and at their appointed time, every year, year after year.

²⁸And these days are remembered and kept in every generation, family by family, province by province, and city by city; and these days of Purim will not pass away from the midst of the Jews, and their memorial will not cease from their seed.

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

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

³¹to confirm these days of Purim at their appointed times, just as Mordecai the Jew and Esther the queen had imposed it on them, and as they had imposed it on their living selves and on their seed, the words of the fasts and their cry.

³²And Esther's command confirmed these words of Purim, and it was written in the record.