13. Esther answered, “If it please Your Majesty, let the Jews in Susa do again tomorrow what they were allowed to do today. And order the bodies of Haman's ten sons to be hung from the gallows.”
14. The king ordered this to be done, and the proclamation was issued in Susa. The bodies of Haman's ten sons were publicly displayed.
15. On the fourteenth day of Adar the Jews of Susa got together again and killed 300 more people in the city. But again, they did no looting.
16. The Jews in the provinces also organized and defended themselves. They rid themselves of their enemies by killing 75,000 people who hated them. But they did no looting.
17. This was on the thirteenth day of Adar. On the next day, the fourteenth, there was no more killing, and they made it a joyful day of feasting.
18. The Jews of Susa, however, made the fifteenth a holiday, since they had slaughtered their enemies on the thirteenth and fourteenth and then stopped on the fifteenth.
19. This is why Jews who live in small towns observe the fourteenth day of the month of Adar as a joyous holiday, a time for feasting and giving gifts of food to one another.
20. Mordecai had these events written down and sent letters to all the Jews, near and far, throughout the Persian Empire,
21. telling them to observe the fourteenth and fifteenth days of Adar as holidays every year.
22. These were the days on which the Jews had rid themselves of their enemies; this was a month that had been turned from a time of grief and despair into a time of joy and happiness. They were told to observe these days with feasts and parties, giving gifts of food to one another and to the poor.
23. So the Jews followed Mordecai's instructions, and the celebration became an annual custom.