Old/New Testament

9 Now in the twelfth month, which is the month Adar, on the thirteenth day of the month, when the king’s commandment and his decree came near to be put in execution, on the day that the enemies of the Jews hoped to conquer them, (but it turned out that the opposite happened, that the Jews conquered those who hated them), ² the Jews gathered themselves together in their cities throughout all the provinces of the King Ahasuerus, to lay hands on those who wanted to harm them. No one could withstand them, because the fear of them had fallen on all the people. ³ All the princes of the provinces, the local governors, the governors, and those who did the king’s business helped the Jews, because the fear of Mordecai had fallen on them. ⁴ For Mordecai was great in the king’s house, and his fame went out throughout all the provinces, for the man Mordecai grew greater and greater. ⁵ The Jews struck all their enemies with the stroke of the sword, and with slaughter and destruction, and did what they wanted to those who hated them. ⁶ In the citadel of Susa, the Jews killed and destroyed five hundred men. ⁷ They killed Parshandatha, Dalphon, Aspatha, ⁸ Poratha, Adalia, Aridatha, ⁹ Parmashta, Arisai, Aridai, and Vaizatha, ¹⁰ the ten sons of Haman the son of Hammedatha, the Jews’ enemy, but they didn’t lay their hand on the plunder.

¹¹ On that day, the number of those who were slain in the citadel of Susa was brought before the king. ¹² The king said to Esther the queen, “The Jews have slain and destroyed five hundred men in the citadel of Susa, including the ten sons of Haman; what then have they done in the rest of the king’s provinces! Now what is your petition? It shall be granted you. What is your further request? It shall be done.”

¹³ Then Esther said, “If it pleases the king, let it be granted to the Jews who are in Susa to do tomorrow also according to today’s decree, and let Haman’s ten sons be hanged on the gallows.”

¹⁴ The king commanded this to be done. A decree was given out in Susa; and they hanged Haman’s ten sons. ¹⁵ The Jews who were in Susa gathered themselves together on the fourteenth day also of the month Adar, and killed three hundred men in Susa; but they didn’t lay their hand on the plunder.

¹⁶ The other Jews who were in the king’s provinces gathered themselves together, defended their lives, had rest from their enemies, and killed seventy-five thousand of those who hated them; but they didn’t lay their hand on the plunder. ¹⁷ This was done on the thirteenth day of the month Adar; and on the fourteenth day of that month they rested and made it a day of feasting and gladness.

¹⁸ But the Jews who were in Susa assembled together on the thirteenth and on the fourteenth days of the month; and on the fifteenth day of that month, they rested, and made it a day of feasting and gladness. ¹⁹ Therefore the Jews of the villages, who live in the unwalled towns, make the fourteenth day of the month Adar a day of gladness and feasting, a holiday, and a day of sending presents of food to one another.

²⁰ Mordecai wrote these things, and sent letters to all the Jews who were in all the provinces of the King Ahasuerus, both near and far, ²¹ to enjoin them that they should keep the fourteenth and fifteenth days of the month Adar yearly, ²² as the days in which the Jews had rest from their enemies, and the month which was turned to them from sorrow to gladness, and from mourning into a holiday; that they should make them days of feasting and gladness, and of sending presents of food to one another, and gifts to the needy. ²³ The Jews accepted the custom that they had begun, as Mordecai had written to them, ²⁴ because Haman the 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 consume them and to destroy them; ²⁵ but when this became known to the king, he commanded by letters that his wicked plan, which he had planned against the Jews, should return on his own head, and that he and his sons should be hanged on the gallows.

²⁶ Therefore they called these days “Purim”,^[a] from the word “Pur.” Therefore because of all the words of this letter, and of that which they had seen concerning this matter, and that which had come to them, ²⁷ the Jews established and imposed on themselves, on their descendants, and on all those who joined themselves to them, so that it should not fail that they would keep these two days according to what was written and according to its appointed time every year; ²⁸ and that these days should be remembered and kept throughout every generation, every family, every province, and every city; and that these days of Purim should not fail from among the Jews, nor their memory perish from their offspring.^[b]

²⁹ Then Esther the queen, the daughter of Abihail, and Mordecai the Jew wrote with all authority to confirm this second letter of Purim. ³⁰ He sent letters to all the Jews in the hundred twenty-seven provinces of the kingdom of Ahasuerus with words of peace and truth, ³¹ to confirm these days of Purim in their appointed times, as Mordecai the Jew and Esther the queen had decreed, and as they had imposed upon themselves and their descendants in the matter of the fastings and their mourning. ³² The commandment of Esther confirmed these matters of Purim; and it was written in the book.

10 King Ahasuerus laid a tribute on the land and on the islands of the sea. ² Aren’t all the acts of his power and of his might, and the full account of the greatness of Mordecai, to which the king advanced him, written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Media and Persia? ³ For Mordecai the Jew was next to King Ahasuerus, and great among the Jews and accepted by the multitude of his brothers, seeking the good of his people and speaking peace to all his descendants.

7 The high priest said, “Are these things so?”

² He said, “Brothers and fathers, listen. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran, ³ and said to him, ‘Get out of your land and away from your relatives, and come into a land which I will show you.’^{(A) 4} Then he came out of the land of the Chaldaeans and lived in Haran. From there, when his father was dead, God moved him into this land where you are now living. ⁵ He gave him no inheritance in it, no, not so much as to set his foot on. He promised that he would give it to him for a possession, and to his offspring after him, when he still had no child. ⁶ God spoke in this way: that his offspring would live as aliens in a strange land, and that they would be enslaved and mistreated for four hundred years. ⁷ ‘I will judge the nation to which they will be in bondage,’ said God, ‘and after that they will come out and serve me in this place.’^{(B) 8} He gave him the covenant of circumcision. So Abraham became the father of Isaac, and circumcised him the eighth day. Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob became the father of the twelve patriarchs.

⁹ “The patriarchs, moved with jealousy against Joseph, sold him into Egypt. God was with him ¹⁰ and delivered him out of all his afflictions, and gave him favor and wisdom before Pharaoh, king of Egypt. He made him governor over Egypt and all his house. ¹¹ Now a famine came over all the land of Egypt and Canaan, and great affliction. Our fathers found no food. ¹² But when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent out our fathers the first time. ¹³ On the second time Joseph was made known to his brothers, and Joseph’s family was revealed to Pharaoh. ¹⁴ Joseph sent and summoned Jacob his father and all his relatives, seventy-five souls. ¹⁵ Jacob went down into Egypt and he died, himself and our fathers; ¹⁶ and they were brought back to Shechem and laid in the tomb that Abraham bought for a price in silver from the children of Hamor of Shechem.

¹⁷ “But as the time of the promise came close which God had sworn to Abraham, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt, ¹⁸ until there arose a different king who didn’t know Joseph. ¹⁹ The same took advantage of our race and mistreated our fathers, and forced them to abandon their babies, so that they wouldn’t stay alive. ²⁰ At that time Moses was born, and was exceedingly handsome to God. He was nourished three months in his father’s house. ²¹ When he was abandoned, Pharaoh’s daughter took him up and reared him as her own son.