⁸ I will devastate this city and make it an object of horror and scorn;^(A) all who pass by will be appalled^(B) and will scoff because of all its wounds.^(C)

²² as the time when the Jews got relief^(A) from their enemies, and as the month when their sorrow was turned into joy and their mourning into a day of celebration.^(B) He wrote them to observe the days as days of feasting and joy and giving presents of food^(C) to one another and gifts to the poor.^(D)

²³ So the Jews agreed to continue the celebration they had begun, doing what Mordecai had written to them. ²⁴ For Haman son of Hammedatha, the Agagite,^(E) the enemy of all the Jews, had plotted against the Jews to destroy them and had cast the pur^(F) (that is, the lot^(G)) for their ruin and destruction.^{(H) 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,^(I) and that he and his sons should be impaled^(J) on poles.^(K)