Esther 9
1 For in the twelfth month, on the
thirteenth day of the month which is Adar, the letters written by the king
arrived. 2 In that day the adversaries
of the Jews perished: for no one resisted, through fear of them.
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. 4 For the
order of the king was in force, that he should be celebrated in all the
kingdom. 6 And in the city Susa the
Jews slew five hundred men: 7 both
Pharsannes, and Delphon and Phasga,
8 and Pharadatha, and Barea, and
Sarbaca, 9 and Marmasima, and Ruphæus,
and Arsæus, and Zabuthæus, 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:
11 and the number of them that
perished in Susa was rendered to the king.
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?
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. 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. 15 And the Jews assembled in
Susa on the fourteenth day of Adar, and slew three
hundred men, but plundered no property.
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.
17 And they rested on the fourteenth
of the same month, and kept it as a day of rest with joy and gladness.
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.
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.
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,
21 to establish these
as joyful days, and to keep the fourteenth and
fifteenth of Adar; 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.
23 And the Jews consented
to this accordingly as Mardochæus wrote to them,
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; 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.
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. 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.
28 And these days of the Phruræ,
said they, shall be kept for ever, and their memorial
shall not fail in any generation.
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.
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.
32 And Esther established it by a
command for ever, and it was written for a memorial.