Esther 9:19-21

Expanded Bible

¹⁹ This is why the Jews who live in the country and small villages celebrate on the fourteenth day of the month of Adar [^CMarch 8]. It is a ·day [holiday] of joyful ·feasting [banqueting] and a day for exchanging ·gifts [gifts of food].

²⁰ Mordecai ·wrote down [recorded] everything that had happened. Then he sent ·letters [dispatches; scrolls] to all the Jews in all the ·empire [provinces] of King ·Xerxes [^LAhasuerus], far and near. ²¹ He ·told [called on] them to celebrate every year on the fourteenth and fifteenth days of the month of Adar,