Esther 9:16-19

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

¹⁶ Now the other Jews who were in the king’s provinces also gathered to defend their lives and gained relief from their enemies and killed seventy-five thousand of those who hated them, but they laid no hands on the plunder.^{(A) 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.^(B)

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.^{(C) 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.^(D)