19. Therefore the Jews in the rural areas, living in the rural towns, made the fourteenth month of Adar a day of joy and feasting, a festive day of giving gifts to each other.
20. Mordecai wrote down these things and he sent letters to all the Jews who were in all of the provinces of King Ahasuerus, both near and far,
21. to impose on them to keep the fourteenth day of the month of Adar, and the fifteenth day, every year,
22. as the day that the Jews found relief from their enemies, and the month which changed for them from sorrow to joy, and from a mourning ceremony to a festive day; to make them days of feasting and joy, and giving gifts to each other and to the poor.
23. And the Jews adopted what they had begun to do and what Mordecai had written to them.