CHAPTER 9

¹On the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar, on the thirteenth day therein, when the king’s command and his rule came to be enacted, on the day when the enemies of the Jews hoped to dominate them and, on the contrary, it was the Jews who dominated their foes, ²the Jews assembled in their cities in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus to lay hands on those who sought to do them harm, and no man could stand before them, for the fear of them had fallen on all the peoples. ³And all the ministers of all the provinces and the satraps and the governors and those who carried out the king’s tasks were raising up the Jews, for the fear of Mordecai had fallen upon them. ⁴For great was Mordecai in the house of the king, and his fame was going about through all the provinces, for the man Mordecai was becoming ever greater. ⁵And the Jews struck down all their enemies with a blow of the sword and with killing and destruction, and they did to their enemies what they willed. ⁶And in Shushan the capital 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 Hammadatha foe of the Jews did they kill, but they did not lay hands on the spoil. ¹¹On that day, the number of the slain in Shushan the capital came before the king, ¹²and the king said to Queen Esther, “In Shushan the capital the Jews killed and destroyed five hundred men and the ten sons of Haman, and in the rest of the king’s provinces, what have they done? And what is your petition, and it will be granted to you, and what more is your request and it will be done!” ¹³And Esther said, “If it please the king, let it be granted to the Jews who are in Shushan tomorrow as well to do according to today’s rule, and let Haman’s ten sons be impaled on stakes.” ¹⁴And the king spoke to have it done thus and to have a rule given out in Shushan and to impale Haman’s ten sons. ¹⁵And the Jews who were in Shushan assembled as well on the fourteenth day of the month of Adar and killed three hundred men in Shushan, but they did not lay hands on the spoils. ¹⁶And the rest of the Jews who were in the king’s provinces assembled and defended their lives and had respite from their enemies and killed their foes, seventy-five thousand, but they did not lay hands on the spoils, ¹⁷on the thirteenth day of the month of Adar, with respite on the fourteenth day therein, and they made it a day of banqueting and rejoicing. ¹⁸And the Jews who were in Shushan assembled on the thirteenth day therein and on the fourteenth day therein, with respite on the fifteenth day therein, and they made it a day of banqueting and rejoicing. ¹⁹Therefore do the village Jews, who dwell in unwalled towns, make the fourteenth day of the month of Adar rejoicing and banqueting and holiday and the sending of portions of food to each other. ²⁰And Mordecai wrote down these things and sent missives to all the Jews who were in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus, near and far, ²¹to fix for them that they should make the fourteenth day of the month of Adar and the fifteenth day therein every single year ²²like the days when the Jews had respite from their enemies, and the month that was turned for them from sorrow to joy and from mourning to holiday, to make them days of banqueting and rejoicing and sending of portions of food to each other and gifts to the poor, ²³and for the Jews to accept all that they had begun to do and that Mordecai had written to them. ²⁴For Haman son of Hammedatha the Agagite foe of the Jews had schemed against the Jews to destroy them and had cast a pur, which is a lot, to panic them and to destroy them. ²⁵And when she came before the king, he said, with the missive, “Let the evil schemes that he hatched against the Jews turn back on his own head.” And they impaled him and his sons on stakes. ²⁶Therefore have they called these days Purim, by the name of the pur. Therefore by all the words of this epistle and what the king had seen concerning this and what had come upon them, ²⁷the Jews fixed and accepted for themselves and for their seed and for all who joined with them, never to be violated, to make these two days, as they were written and according to their time, in every single year, ²⁸and that these days should be remembered and done in every generation, clan by clan, province by province, city by city, and that these days of Purim should not pass away from the midst of the Jews, and their remembrance should not come to an end from among their seed. ²⁹And Queen Esther daughter of Abihail with Mordecai the Jew wrote with full authority to confirm this Purim epistle once more. ³⁰And missives were sent to all the Jews, to the hundred twenty-seven provinces of the kingdom of Ahasuerus, words of peace and truth, ³¹to fix these days of Purim in their times as Mordecai the Jew and Queen Esther had fixed for them, and as they had fixed for themselves and for their seed just as they had fixed for themselves matters of fasts and their supplication. ³²And Esther’s dictum fixed these matters of Purim and was written out in a missive.