Esther 9:17-22
English Standard Version
17 This was (A)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. 18 But the Jews who were in Susa gathered (B)on the thirteenth day and on the fourteenth, and rested (C)on the fifteenth day, making that a day of feasting and gladness. 19 Therefore the Jews of the villages, who live in (D)the rural towns, hold the fourteenth day of the month of Adar as a day for gladness and feasting, as (E)a holiday, and (F)as a day on which they send gifts of food to one another.
The Feast of Purim Inaugurated
20 And Mordecai recorded these things and sent letters to all the Jews who were in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus, both near and far, 21 obliging them to keep the fourteenth day of the month Adar and also the fifteenth day of the same, year by year, 22 as the days on which the Jews got relief from their enemies, and as the month that had been turned for them from sorrow into gladness and from mourning into (G)a holiday; that they should make them days of feasting and gladness, days for sending gifts of food to one another and gifts to the poor.
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