that they should keep the fourteenth day of
the month Adar, and the fifteenth day of the same, yearly, as 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 presents one to another, and gifts to the poor. And the
Jews undertook to do as they had begun, and as Mordecai had written
unto them; because Haman, the enemy of all the Jews, had plotted
against the Jews to destroy them, and had cast Pur, that is, the lot,
to consume them, and to destroy them; but when the matter came before
the king, he commanded by letters that his wicked device, which he had
devised against the Jews, should return upon his own head; and that he
and his sons should be hanged on the gallows. Wherefore they called
these days Purim, after the name of Pur. Therefore because of all the
words of this letter, and of that which they had seen concerning this
matter, and that which had come unto them, the Jews ordained, and took
upon them, and upon their race, and upon all such as joined themselves
unto them, so that it should not fail, that they would keep these two
days according to the writing thereof, and according to the appointed
time thereof, every year; and that these days should be remembered and
kept throughout every generation, every family, every province, and
every city; and that these days of Purim should not fail from among
the Jews, nor the memorial of them perish from their race. Then Esther
{79} the queen, and Mordecai the Jew, wrote with all authority to
confirm this second letter of Purim.

And he sent letters unto all the Jews, to the hundred twenty and seven
provinces of the kingdom of Ahasuerus, with words of peace and truth,
to confirm these days of Purim in their appointed times, according as
Mordecai the Jew and Esther the queen had enjoined them, and as they
had ordained for themselves and for their race. And the commandment of
Esther confirmed these matters of Purim; and it was written in the
book.

And the king Ahasuerus laid a tribute upon the land, and upon the
isles of the sea. And all the acts of his power and of his might, and
the full account of the greatness of Mordecai, whereunto the king
advanced him, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of
the kings of Media and Persia? For Mordecai the Jew was next unto King
Ahasuerus, and gr