Esther 9
1 The first law that the king had commanded was to be made effective on March 7th. On that day the enemies of the Jews hoped to get rid of them. But instead, on that same day the Jews defeated their enemies.
For in the twelfth month, on the thirteenth day of the month which is Adar, the letters written by the king arrived.
2 Throughout the empire, the Jews gathered together in their cities to attack those who wanted to get rid of them. No one could fight against the Jews, because all the other people in the areas where the Jews lived were afraid of them, [so they did not want to help anyone who attacked the Jews].
In that day the adversaries of the Jews perished: for no one resisted, through fear of them.
3 All the governors and [other] officials and important people in all the provinces helped the Jews, because they were afraid of Mordecai.
For the chiefs of the satraps, and the princes and the royal scribes, honored the Jews; for the fear of Mardochaeus lay upon them.
4 They were afraid of him because in all the provinces [they knew that] Mordecai was now the king’s most important official, [with the authority that Haman previously had]. Mordecai was becoming more famous because [the king was giving him] more and more power.
For the order of the king was in force, that he should be celebrated in all the kingdom.
5 [On March 7th, ] the Jews attacked and killed with their swords all of their enemies. They did whatever they wanted to do, to the people who hated them.
6 [Just] in Susa alone, the capital city, they killed 500 people.
And in the city Susa the Jews killed five hundred men:
7 Among those whom they killed were the ten sons of Haman. [Their names were] Parshandatha, Dalphon, Aspatha,
both Pharsannes, and Delphon and Phasga,
8 Poratha, Adalia, Aridatha,
and Pharadatha, and Barea, and Sarbaca,
9 Parmashta, Arisai, Aridai, and Vaizatha.
and Marmasima, and Ruphaeus, and Arsaeus, and Zabuthaeus,
10 Those were grandsons of Hammedatha and sons of Haman, the enemy of the Jews. The Jews killed them, but they did not take the things that belonged to the people whom they killed.
the ten sons of Aman the son of Amadathes the Bugaean, the enemy of the Jews, and they plundered [their property] on the same day:
11 [At the end of] that day someone reported to the king the number of people whom the Jews killed in Susa.
and the number of them that perished in Susa was rendered to the king.
12 Then the king said to Queen Esther, “The Jews have killed 500 people here in Susa, including the ten sons of Haman! [So I think that] they must have killed many more people in the rest of my empire [RHQ]! [But okay], now what else do you want me to do for you. You tell me, and I will do it.”
And the king said to Esther, The Jews have slain five hundred men in the city Susa; and how, think you, have they used them in the rest of the country? What then do you yet ask, that it may be [done] for you?
13 Esther replied, “If it pleases you, allow the Jews here in Susa to do again tomorrow what [you] commanded [them] to do today. And command that the bodies of Haman’s ten sons be hanged on the gallows/poles.”
And Esther said to the king, let it be granted to the Jews so to treat them tomorrow as to hand the ten sons of Aman.
14 So the king commanded that the Jews be permitted to kill more of their enemies the next day. After he issued [another] order in Susa, the bodies of Haman’s ten sons were hanged.
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 On the next day, the Jews in Susa gathered together and killed 300 more people. But [again, ] they did not take the things that belonged to the people whom they killed.
And the Jews assembled in Susa on the fourteenth [day] of Adar, and killed three hundred men, but plundered no property.
16 That happened on March 8th. On the following day, the Jews [in Susa] rested and celebrated. In all the other provinces, the Jewish people gathered together to defend themselves, and they killed 75,000 people who hated them, but [again] they did not take the things that belonged to the people whom they killed.
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 That occurred on March 7th, and on the following day they rested and celebrated.
And they rested on the fourteenth of the same month, and kept it as a day of rest with joy and gladness.
18 After the Jews in Susa gathered together [and killed their enemies] on March 7th and 8th, they rested and celebrated on March 9th.
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 That is why [every year], on March 8th, the Jews who live in villages now celebrate [defeating their enemies]. They have feasts and give gifts [of food] to each other.
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 neighbor.
20 Mordecai wrote down all the things that had happened. Then he sent letters to the Jews who lived throughout the empire of King Xerxes.
And Mardochaeus 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 He told them that every year they should celebrate on the 8th and 9th of March,
to establish these [as] joyful days, and to keep the fourteenth and fifteenth of Adar;
22 because those were the days when the Jews got rid of their enemies. He also told them that they should celebrate on those days by feasting and giving gifts [of food] to each other and to poor people. They would remember it as the month in which they changed from being very sorrowful to being very joyful, from crying to celebrating.
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 So the Jews agreed to do what Mordecai wrote. They agreed to celebrate on those days [every year].
And the Jews consented [to this] accordingly as Mardochaeus wrote to them,
24 They would remember how Haman, son of Hammedatha, a descendant of [King] Agag, became an enemy of all the Jews. [They would remember] how he had made an evil plan to kill the Jews, and that he had (cast lots/thrown small marked stones) to choose the day to kill [DOU] them.
[showing] how Aman the son of Amadathes the Macedonian fought against them, how he made a decree and cast lots to destroy them utterly;
25 [They would remember] that when Esther told the king about Haman’s plan, the king arranged that the evil plan that Haman had made to kill the Jews would fail, and that he [would be killed] instead of the Jews, and that Haman and that his sons were hanged.
also how he went in to the king, telling [him] to hang Mardochaeus: but all the calamities he tried to bring upon the Jews came upon himself, and he was hanged, and his children.
26 [Because the (lot/small marked stone) that Haman threw was called] Pur, the Jews called these days Purim. And, because of everything that ([Mordecai] wrote/was written) in that letter, and because of all that happened to them,
Therefore these days were called Phrurae, because of the lots; (for in their language they are called Phrurae; ) because of the words of this letter, and [because of] all they suffered on this account, and all that happened to them.
27 the Jews [throughout the empire] agreed to celebrate in that manner on those two days every year. They said that they would tell their descendants and those people who became Jews to be certain to celebrate this festival every year. They should celebrate just as [Mordecai] told them to do [in the letter] that he wrote.
And [Mardochaeus] 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 They said that they would remember and celebrate on those two days every year, in each family, in every city, and in every province. They solemnly declared that they and their descendants would never stop remembering and celebrating those days called Purim.
And these days of the Phrurae, [said they, ]shall be kept for ever, and their memorial shall not fail in any generation.
29 Then Mordecai and Queen Esther, who was the daughter of Abihail, wrote a second letter about the Purim feast. Esther used the authority that she had because of being the queen to confirm that what Mordecai had written in the first letter was true.
And queen Esther, the daughter of Aminadab, and Mardochaeus the Jew, wrote all that they had done, and the confirmation of the letter of Phrurae.
30 What they wrote [in the second letter] was, “We wish that all of you will be living peacefully and safely/righteously. We want you and your descendants to celebrate Purim each year on the days that we two established, and to do the things that we two told you to do.” In that letter, Queen Esther and Mordecai also gave them instructions about (fasting/abstaining from eating food) and being sorrowful. Then copies of that letter were sent to all the Jews who were living in the 127 provinces of the empire.
And Mardochaeus and Esther the queen appointed [a fast] for themselves privately, even at that time also having formed their plan against their own health.
32 The letter that Esther wrote about the manner in which they should celebrate the Purim feast was also written in an official record.
And Esther established it by a command for ever, and it was written for a memorial.
