⁷ In the twelfth year of King Xerxes, in the first month, the month of Nisan, the pur^(A) (that is, the lot^(B)) was cast in the presence of Haman to select a day and month. And the lot fell on^[a] the twelfth month, the month of Adar.^(C)

¹⁵ The temple was completed on the third day of the month Adar, in the sixth year of the reign of King Darius.^(A)

²⁴ For Haman son of Hammedatha, the Agagite,^(A) the enemy of all the Jews, had plotted against the Jews to destroy them and had cast the pur^(B) (that is, the lot^(C)) for their ruin and destruction.^{(D) 25} But when the plot came to the king’s attention,^[a] he issued written orders that the evil scheme Haman had devised against the Jews should come back onto his own head,^(E) and that he and his sons should be impaled^(F) on poles.^{(G) 26} (Therefore these days were called Purim, from the word pur.^(H)) Because of everything written in this letter and because of what they had seen and what had happened to them,

²¹ For the king of Babylon will stop at the fork in the road, at the junction of the two roads, to seek an omen: He will cast lots^(A) with arrows, he will consult his idols,^(B) he will examine the liver.^{(C) 22} Into his right hand will come the lot for Jerusalem, where he is to set up battering rams, to give the command to slaughter, to sound the battle cry,^(D) to set battering rams against the gates, to build a ramp^(E) and to erect siege works.^(F)

³⁵ When they had crucified him, they divided up his clothes by casting lots.^(A)

²¹ to have them celebrate annually the fourteenth and fifteenth days of the month of Adar

¹⁷ This happened on the thirteenth day of the month of Adar, and on the fourteenth they rested and made it a day of feasting^(A) and joy.

¹⁸ The Jews in Susa, however, had assembled on the thirteenth and fourteenth, and then on the fifteenth they rested and made it a day of feasting and joy.

¹⁹ That is why rural Jews—those living in villages—observe the fourteenth of the month of Adar^(B) as a day of joy and feasting, a day for giving presents to each other.^(C)

⁵ The Jews struck down all their enemies with the sword, killing and destroying them,^(A) and they did what they pleased to those who hated them.