²⁷ the Jews established and accepted as a custom for themselves and their descendants and all who joined them that without fail they would continue to observe these two days every year, as it was written and at the time appointed.^(A)

¹¹ Many nations shall join themselves to the Lord on that day and shall be my people, and I will dwell in your midst. And you shall know that the Lord of hosts has sent me to you.

¹⁷ In every province and in every city, wherever the king’s command and his edict came, there was gladness and joy among the Jews, a festival and a holiday. Furthermore, many of the peoples of the country professed to be Jews because the fear of the Jews had fallen upon them.^(A)

²³ Thus says the Lord of hosts: In those days ten men from nations of every language shall take hold of a Jew, grasping his garment and saying, ‘Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.’ ”^(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,

David Avenges the Gibeonites

21 Now there was a famine in the days of David for three years, year after year, and David inquired of the Lord. The Lord said, “There is bloodguilt on Saul and on his house because he put the Gibeonites to death.” ² So the king called the Gibeonites and spoke to them. (Now the Gibeonites were not of the people of Israel but of the remnant of the Amorites; although the people of Israel had sworn to spare them, Saul had tried to wipe them out in his zeal for the people of Israel and Judah.)^(A)

²⁵ From that day forward he made it a statute and an ordinance for Israel; it continues to the present day.

¹⁵ And Joshua made peace with them, guaranteeing their lives by a treaty, and the leaders of the congregation swore an oath to them.^(A)