Esther 9:20-32 ▼

20 And Mordecai wrote these things and sent letters to all the Jews who were in all the provinces of King Akhshirash, both near and far.

21 To agree among themselves that they should keep the fourteenth day of the month Adar and the fifteenth day of the same, yearly,

22 As the days on which the Jews rested from their enemies and the month which was turned for them from sorrow to joy and from mourning to a good day, that they should make them days of feasting and joy and of sending portions of food one to another and gifts to the poor.

23 And the Jews took upon them selves to do as they had begun and as Mordecai had written them;

24 Because Haman the son of Hammadatha, the Agagite, the enemy of all the Jews, had plotted against the Jews to destroy them, and had cast lots to consume them and to destroy them;

25 When Esther came before the king, the scribe would say, Let the wicked plots which were devised against the Jews return upon the head of him who had devised them, and let him and his sons be hanged on the gallows.

26 Therefore they called these days Porayey, after the name Passover. Because of all the words of this letter and of that which they had seen concerning this matter and because of that which has befallen them.

27 The Jews ordained thus, and took upon themselves and upon their descendants and upon all such as joined themselves to them that it should not fail that 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 in every province and every city; and that these days of Porayey should not fail from among the Jews, nor the memorial of them perish from their descend ants.

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

30 And they sent letters to all the Jews, to the hundred and twenty-seven provinces of the kingdom of Akhshirash the king, with words of truth and peace

31 To confirm these days of Porayey in their appointed times, ac cording as Mordecai the Jew and Esther the queen had enjoined upon them and upon their children the decree of their fasting and their prayer.

32 And the decree of Esther con firmed these matters of Porayey which were written in the book.