16. But the other Jews that were in the king's provinces gathered themselves together, and defended their lives, and had rest from their enemies, and killed of their foes seventy and five thousand, but they laid not their hands on the spoil,
17. On the thirteenth day of the month Adar; and on the fourteenth day of the same they rested, and made it a day of feasting and gladness.
18. But the Jews that 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, that dwelt in the unwalled towns, made the fourteenth day of the month Adar a day of gladness and feasting, and a good day, and of sending presents one to another.
20. And Mordecai wrote these things, and sent letters unto all the Jews that were in all the provinces of king Ahasuerus, both near and far,
21. To establish this among them, 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 unto them from sorrow to joy, and from mourning into a good day: that they should make them days of feast
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 plotted 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 his wicked plot, which he devised against the Jews, should return upon his own head, and that he and his sons should be hanged on the gallows.