17[This was done] on the thirteenth day of the month Adar; and on the fourteenth day of the same they rested, and made it a day of feasting and gladness.
18But the Jews that were in Shushan assembled together on the thirteenth [day] thereof, and on the fourteenth thereof; and on the fifteenth [day] of the same they rested, and made it a day of feasting and gladness.
19Therefore do the Jews of the villages, that dwell in the unwalled towns, make the fourteenth day of the month Adar [a day of] gladness and feasting, and a good day, and of sending portions one to another.
20And Mordecai wrote these things, and sent letters unto all the Jews that were in all the provinces of the king Ahasuerus, both nigh and far,
21to enjoin them that they should keep the fourteenth day of the month Adar, and the fifteenth day of the same, yearly,
22as the days wherein the Jews had rest from their enemies, and the month which was turned unto them from sorrow to gladness, and from mourning into a good day; that they should make them days of feasting and gladness, and of sending portions one to another, and gifts to the poor.
23And the Jews undertook to do as they had begun, and as Mordecai had written unto them;