Thematic Bible: National deliverances

In each and every province and in each and every city, wherever the king’s command and his decree arrived, the Jews celebrated with gladness and joy, a feast and a holiday. And many among the peoples of the land became Jews, for the fear of the Jews [and their God] had fallen on them. Verse ConceptsFearing Other PeopleRejoicing In God's Works

This was done on the thirteenth day of the month of Adar, and on the fourteenth day they rested and made it a day of feasting and gladness. But the Jews who were in Shushan [Susa] assembled on the thirteenth day and on the fourteenth, and on the fifteenth day they rested and made it a day of feasting and gladness. Therefore the Jews of the villages, who dwell in the unwalled towns, make the fourteenth day of the month of Adar a day of gladness and feasting, a holiday, and a day for sending choice portions to one another.