Beverages were served in an array of gold goblets, each with a different design. Royal wine flowed freely, according to the king’s bounty

The drinking was carried on in accordance with the law; no one was compelled [to drink], for the king had directed each official of his household to comply with each guest’s wishes.

So he sent letters to all the royal provinces, to each province in its own script and to each people in their own language, saying that every man should be the master and rule in his own home and that he should speak [in the household] in the language of his own people.

Let the king appoint commissioners in each province of his kingdom, so that they may assemble all the beautiful young women to the harem at the fortress of Susa. Put them under the care of Hegai, the king’s eunuch, who is in charge of the women, and give them the required beauty treatments.

And in the drawing nigh of the turn of each young woman to come in unto the king Ahasuerus, at the end of there being to her -- according to the law of the women -- twelve months, for so they fulfil the days of their purifications; six months with oil of myrrh, and six months with spices, and with the purifications of women,

In the first month, that is, the month Nisan, in the twelfth year of king Ahasuerus, they cast Pur, that is, the lot, before Haman for each day and for each month, to the twelfth month, that is, the month Adar.

Then the king’s scribes (secretaries) were summoned on the thirteenth day of the first month, and it was written just as Haman commanded to the king’s satraps (chief rulers), and to the governors who were over each province and to the officials of each people, each province according to its script (writing), each people according to their own language; being written in the name of King Ahasuerus and sealed with the king’s signet ring.

Letters were sent by couriers to each of the royal provinces telling the officials to destroy, kill, and annihilate all the Jewish people—young and old, women and children—and plunder their possessions on a single day, the thirteenth day of Adar, the twelfth month.

In every province [each] place where the king's edict and his law came, there [was] great mourning for the Jews with fasting, crying, wailing, [and] sackcloth; and ashes were spread out as a bed for them.

And the secretaries of the king were summoned at that time, in the third month, which [is] in the month of Sivan on the twenty-third [day], and [an edict] was written according to all that Mordecai commanded, to the Jews and to the governors and satraps and officials of the provinces from India to Cush--one hundred and twenty-seven provinces--each province according to its own script and to every people in their own {language}, and to the Jews in their own script and language.

The king’s edict gave the Jews in each and every city the right to assemble and defend themselves, to destroy, kill, and annihilate every ethnic and provincial army hostile to them, including women and children, and to take their possessions as spoils of war.

A copy of the {edict} [was] to be given [as] law in each province to inform all the people, so that the Jews would be ready on that day to avenge themselves from their enemies.

In each and every province, and in each and every city, in the places where the king's order and edict reached, there was gladness and joy among the Jewish people, along with a festival and a holiday. Many of the people of the land became Jews, because they had come to fear the Jewish people.

In each of King Ahasuerus’s provinces the Jews assembled in their cities to attack those who intended to harm them. Not a single person could withstand them; terror of them fell on every nationality.

Therefore the Jews in the rural [areas], living in the rural towns, made the fourteenth month of Adar a day of joy and feasting, a festive day of giving gifts to each other.

to have them observe the fourteenth and the fifteenth day of the month of Adar each year

as the day that the Jews {found relief} from their enemies, and the month which changed for them from sorrow to joy, and from a mourning ceremony to a {festive day}; to make them days of feasting and joy, and giving gifts to each other and to the poor.

the Jews bound themselves, their descendants, and all who joined with them to a commitment that they would not fail to celebrate these two days each and every year according to the written instructions and according to the time appointed.

These days should be remembered and observed in every generation by each family in every province and town. These days of Purim should not be neglected by the Jewish people, and that they should not be forgotten by their descendants.