Moff EST Chapter 9

◄ EST 9 ► ║ ═ ©

9 On the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, the month of Adar, when the king’s command and edict was to be put in force, the very day when the enemies of the Jews expected to get the upper hand of them, it proved exactly the reverse; the Jews got the upper hand of their adversaries. 2 The Jews mustered in their cities throughout all the provinces of king Xerxes, to kill those who planned their ruin; none could hold out against them, for the fear of them had fallen upon all races. 3 Indeed, all the officials of the provinces and the satraps and the governors and those who managed the king’s affairs gave help to the Jews; the fear of Mordecai had fallen upon them, 4 for Mordecai was high in the royal household, and lus fame spread throughout all the provinces; the man Mordecai grew more powerful than ever. 5 So the Jews smote all their enemies with the sword, slaughtering and destroying them and working their will upon their adversaries. 6 In the citadel of Susa the Jews slew and destroyed five hundred men; 7 they slew Parshandatha and Dalphon and Aspatha 8 and Poratha and Adalia and Aridatha 9 and Parmashta and Arisai and Aridai and Vaizatha, 10 the ten sons of Haman the son of Hammedatha, the enemy of the Jews; but they laid not a finger on the plunder.

11 That day, the number of those who had been slain in the citadel of Susa was laid before the king. 12 And the king said to queen Esther, “In the citadel of Susa the Jews have slain and destroyed five hundred men and also the ten sons of Haman. What, then, must they have done in the other provinces of the king? Now, what is your petition? You shall have it. What is your next request? It shall be done for you.” 13 “If it please the king,” said Esther, “let the Jews in Susa be allowed to act to-morrow also in terms of the edict for to-day. And let Hainan’s ten sons be hanged on the gallows!” 14 The king ordered this to be done; an edict was issued, Haman’s ten sons were hanged, 15 and the Jews in Susa mustered on the fourteenth day of the month Adar as well and slew three hundred men in Susa--though they laid not a finger on the plunder. 16 The other Jews throughout the king’s provinces had also mustered to defend their lives, had taken vengeance on their enemies, and slain seventy-five thousand of their adversaries; but they laid not a finger on the plunder: 17 this was on the thirteenth of the month Adar, while on the fourteenth they rested, making that a day of feasting and rejoicing. 18 The Jews in Susa mustered both on the thirteenth and on the fourteenth, resting on the fifteenth and making that a day of feasting and rejoicing. 19 This is why village-Jews, residing in unwalled townships, make the fourteenth day of the month Adar a day for rejoicing and feasting and holiday-making and sending dainties to one another.

20 [[Mordecai wrote as follows to all the Jews in all the provinces of king Xerxes, to those near and to those far away; 21 his letter bade them keep both the fourteenth and the fifteenth of the month Adar every year, 22 as days on which the Jews had relief from their enemies, days in a month which had been changed for them from grief to gladness, from mourning into a holiday: these days they were to make days of feasting and rejoicing, sending dainties to one another and gifts to the poor. 23 So the Jews undertook to keep this as a yearly custom, as Mordecai had written to them. 24 For Haman the son of Hammedatha the Agagite, the enemy of all the Jews, had plotted to destroy the Jews and had cast “pur,” that is, the lot, to defeat them and destroy them; 25 but, when the king heard of the matter, he gave command by letters that his wicked plot, devised against the Jews, should recoil upon his own head, and that he and his sons should be hanged on the gallows. 26 Hence they called these days “Purim,” after “pur.” And in consequence of all that was written in this letter, and of their own experiences, 27 the Jews agreed for themselves and for their descendants, and for all who should adhere to them, that it should be an irrevocable custom to keep these two days, in terms of Mordecai’s written message, at the fixed time every year, 28 that these days should be remembered and kept by each generation, family, province, and city, that these days of Purim should never be repealed among the Jews, and that the memory of them should never cease from their descendants.

29 Queen Esther, the daughter of Abihail, also wrote with full authority in order to ratify the following second message about Purim; 30 letters were sent by her to all the Jews throughout the hundred and twenty-seven provinces of Xerxes, in terms of goodwill and loyalty, 31 for the purpose of fixing these days of Purim and their date, as Mordecai the Jew had enjoined, and as the Jews had undertaken for themselves and their descendants in the matter of fasting and wailing. 32 Esther’s command fixed these arrangements for Purim, and they were set down in writing.]]

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