Esther 9:19-22

19Therefore the Jews of the villages, who live in athe rural towns, hold the fourteenth day of the month of Adar as a day for gladness and feasting, as ba holiday, and cas a day on which they send gifts of food to one another.

The Feast of Purim Inaugurated

20And Mordecai recorded these things and sent letters to all the Jews who were in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus, both near and far, 21obliging them to keep the fourteenth day of the month Adar and also the fifteenth day of the same, year by year, 22as 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 da 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.

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