⁷ In the first month, which is the month of Nisan, in the twelfth year of King Ahasuerus, they cast Pur—which means “the lot”—before Haman for the day and for the month, and the lot fell on the thirteenth day of^[a] the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar.^(A)

¹⁵ and this house was finished on the third day of the month of Adar, in the sixth year of the reign of King Darius.

²¹ For the king of Babylon stands at the parting of the way, at the fork in the two roads, to use divination; he shakes the arrows; he consults the teraphim;^[a] he inspects the liver.^{(A) 22} Into his right hand comes the lot for Jerusalem, to set battering rams, to call out for slaughter, for raising the battle cry, to set battering rams against the gates, to cast up ramps, to build siege towers.

²⁴ For Haman 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 crush and to destroy them,^{(A) 25} but when Esther^[a] came before the king, he gave orders in writing that the wicked plot that he had devised against the Jews should come upon his own head and that he and his sons should be hung on the pole.^{(B) 26} Therefore these days are called Purim, from the word Pur. Thus because of all that was written in this letter and of what they had faced in this matter and of what had happened to them,^(C)

³⁵ And when they had crucified him, they divided his clothes among themselves by casting lots;^[a](A)

²¹ enjoining them that they should keep the fourteenth day of the month Adar and also the fifteenth day of the same month, year by year,

¹⁷ This was on the thirteenth day of the month of Adar, and on the fourteenth day they rested and made that a day of feasting and gladness.^(A)

The Feast of Purim Inaugurated

¹⁸ But the Jews who were in Susa gathered on the thirteenth day and on the fourteenth and rested on the fifteenth day, making that a day of feasting and gladness.^{(B) 19} Therefore the Jews of the villages, who live in the open towns, hold the fourteenth day of the month of Adar as a day for gladness and feasting, a holiday on which they send gifts of food to one another.^(C)

⁵ So the Jews struck down all their enemies with the sword, slaughtering and destroying them, and did as they pleased to those who hated them.

Destruction of the Enemies of the Jews

9 Now in the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar, on the thirteenth day, when the king’s command and edict were about to be executed, on the very day when the enemies of the Jews hoped to gain power over them but that had been changed to a day when the Jews would gain power over their foes,^(A)