Esther 8:11-13

Evangelical Heritage Version

The Content and Effect of the Letters

¹¹ The king gave the Jews in every city the right to gather together to defend their own lives and to destroy, kill, and annihilate any military force of any people or province that might attack them, along with their children and their wives, and to plunder their goods.

¹² In all the provinces of King Xerxes, ¹³ a copy of the writing, which was issued as a law for every province, proclaimed to all the peoples that on one day (the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, Adar), the Jews would be ready to avenge themselves on their enemies.