¹⁷ And in every province and in every city, wherever the king's command and his edict reached, there was gladness and joy among the Jews, a feast and ^(A)a holiday. ^(B)And many from the peoples of the country declared themselves Jews, ^(C)for fear of the Jews had fallen on them.

¹⁹ Therefore the Jews of the villages, who live in ^(A)the rural towns, hold the fourteenth day of the month of Adar as a day for gladness and feasting, as ^(B)a holiday, and ^(C)as a day on which they send gifts of food to one another.

²² as the days on which the Jews got relief from their enemies, and as the month that had been turned for them from sorrow into gladness and from mourning into ^(A)a holiday; that they should make them days of feasting and gladness, days for sending gifts of food to one another and gifts to the poor.