Purim Letters

²⁰Mordecai recorded these events. And he sent dispatches to all the Jews throughout the provinces of King Ahasuerus, near and far, ²¹charging them to observe the fourteenth and fifteenth days of Adar, every year—²²the same days on which the Jews enjoyed relief from their foes and the same month which had been transformed for them from one of grief and mourning to one of festive joy. They were to observe them as days of feasting and merrymaking, and as an occasion for sending gifts to one another and presents to the poor. ²³The Jews accordingly assumed as an obligation that which they had begun to practice and which Mordecai prescribed for them. [ . . . ]

²⁹Then Queen Esther daughter of Abihail wrote a second letter of Purim for the purpose of confirming with full authority the aforementioned one of Mordecai the Jew. ³⁰Dispatches were sent to all the Jews in the hundred and twenty-seven provinces of the realm of Ahasuerus with an ordinance of “equity and honesty:” ³¹These days of Purim shall be observed at their proper time, as Mordecai the Jew—and now Queen Esther— has obligated them to do, and just as they have assumed for themselves and their descendants the obligation of the fasts with their lamentations.