²¹ He established the fourteenth and fifteenth days of the month of Adar as days they must observe every year. ²² They were to observe them just like the days when the Jews freed themselves from their enemies. In that month their grief turned to joy and their mourning into a holiday. He declared that these days are to be days for feasting and celebrating and for sending gifts of food to one another, especially gifts to the poor.

²³ So the Jews accepted as tradition what they had begun, as Mordecai had written to them.