And the drinking was according to the law, no one compelling, for so the king had commanded every chief of his house that they should do according to every man's pleasure.

For he sent letters into all the king's provinces, into every province according to the writing of it, and to every people in their language, so that every man should bear rule in his own house, and published according to the language of every people.

Esther had not revealed her people nor her kindred, for Mordecai had commanded her that she should not show it.

Also he gave him the copy of the writing of the decree which was given at Shushan in order to destroy them, to show it to Esther and to declare it to her, and to command her that she should go in to the king to make supplication to him, and to seek help for her people.

The copy of the writing for a command to be given in every province was announced to all people, even that the Jews should be ready against that day to avenge themselves on their enemies.

to establish among them that they should keep the fourteenth day of the month Adar, and the fifteenth day of the same, yearly,

as the days in which the Jews rested from their enemies, and the month which was turned to them from sorrow to joy, and from mourning into a good day; that they should make them days of feasting and joy, and of sending portions to one another, and gifts to the poor.

But when Esther came before the king, he commanded by letters that his wicked plot which he had plotted against the Jews should return on his own head, and that he and his sons should be hanged on the wooden gallows.

the Jews ordained, and took on them and on their seed, and on all such as joined themselves to them, so as it should not fail, that they would keep these two days according to their writing, and according to their time every year,

and that these days should be remembered and kept throughout every generation, every family, every province, and every city, and these days of Purim should not fail from among the Jews, nor the memorial of them perish from their seed.