9:1 For in the twelfth month, on the thirteenth day of the month which is Adar, the letters written by the king arrived.

9:2 In that day the adversaries of the Jews perished: for no one resisted, through fear of them.

9:3 For the chiefs of the satraps, and the princes and the royal scribes, honoured the Jews; for the fear of Mardochæus lay upon them.

9:4 For the order of the king was in force, that he should be celebrated in all the kingdom.

9:6 And in the city Susa the Jews slew five hundred men:

9:7 both Pharsannes, and Delphon and Phasga,

9:8 and Pharadatha, and Barea, and Sarbaca,

9:9 and Marmasima, and Ruphæus, and Arsæus, and Zabuthæus,

9:10 the ten sons of Aman the son of Amadathes the Bugæan, the enemy of the Jews, and they plundered [their property] on the same day:

9:11 and the number of them that perished in Susa was rendered to the king.

9:12 And the king said to Esther, The Jews have slain five hundred men in the city Susa; and how, thinkest thou, have they used them in the rest of the country? What then dost thou yet ask, that it may be [done] for thee?

9:13 And Esther said to the king, Let it be granted to the Jews so to treat them to-morrow as to hang the ten sons of Aman.

9:14 And he permitted it to be so done; and he gave up to the Jews of the city the bodies of the sons of Aman to hang.

9:15 And the Jews assembled in Susa on the fourteenth [day] of Adar, and slew three hundred men, but plundered no property.

9:16 And the rest of the Jews who were in the kingdom assembled, and helped one another, and obtained rest from their enemies: for they destroyed fifteen thousand of them on the thirteenth [day] of Adar, but took no spoil.

9:17 And they rested on the fourteenth of the same month, and kept it as a day of rest with joy and gladness.

9:18 And the Jews in the city Susa assembled also on the fourteenth [day] and rested; and they kept also the fifteenth with joy and gladness.

9:19 On this account then [it is that] the Jews dispersed in every foreign land keep the fourteenth of Adar [as] a holy day with joy, sending portions each to his neighbour.

9:20 And Mardochæus wrote these things in a book, and sent them to the Jews, as many as were in the kingdom of Artaxerxes, both them that were near and them that were afar off,

9:21 to establish these [as] joyful days, and to keep the fourteenth and fifteenth of Adar;

9:22 for on these days the Jews obtained rest from their enemies: and [as to] the month, which was Adar, in which a change was made for them, from mourning to joy, and from sorrow to a good day, to spend the whole of it [in] good days of feasting and gladness, sending portions to their friends, and to the poor.

9:23 And the Jews consented [to this] accordingly as Mardochæus wrote to them,

9:24 [shewing] how Aman the son of Amadathes the Macedonian fought against them, how he made a decree and cast lots to destroy them utterly;

9:25 also how he went in to the king, telling [him] to hang Mardochæus: but all the calamities he tried to bring upon the Jews came upon himself, and he was hanged, and his children.

9:26 Therefore these days were called Phruræ, because of the lots; (for in their language they are called Phruræ;) because of the words of this letter, and [because of] all they suffered on this account, and all that happened to them.

9:27 And [Mardochæus] established it, and the Jews took upon themselves, and upon their seed, and upon those that were joined to them [to observe it], neither would they on any account behave differently: but these days [were to be] a memorial kept in every generation, and city, and family, and province.

9:28 And these days of the Phruræ, [said they], shall be kept for ever, and their memorial shall not fail in any generation.

9:29 And queen Esther, the daughter of Aminadab, and Mardochæus the Jew, wrote all that they had done, and the confirmation of the letter of Phruræ.

9:31 And Mardochæus and Esther the queen appointed [a fast] for themselves privately, even at that time also having formed their plan against their own health.

9:32 And Esther established it by a command for ever, and it was written for a memorial.