Purim (Days of Purim) is a festival commemorating the deliverance of the Jews from Haman's plot to annihilate them during the rule of the Persian Empire. It was observed on the 14th and 15th of Adar.
Esther 9:20Mordecai) recorded these things and sent letters to all the Jews in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus), both near and far, saying,Esther 9:21that they should keep the fourteenth and fifteenth days of the month of Adar annually,Esther 9:22as the days on which the Jews got relief from their enemies, and as the month that had been turned for them from sorrow into joy and from mourning into 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.Esther 9:23So the Jews undertook to do as they had begun, and as Mordecai) had written to them.Esther 9:24For Haman the son of Hammedatha the Agagite, the enemy of all the Jews, had plotted against the Jews to destroy them, and had cast Pur (that is, the lot) to crush and destroy them.Esther 9:25But when Esther) came before the king, he gave orders in writing that Haman's wicked plot that he had devised against the Jews should return on his own head, and that he and his sons should be hanged on the gallows.Esther 9:26Therefore they called these days Purim, from the word Pur. And so, because of all that was written in this letter, and because of what they had seen in this matter and what had happened to them,Esther 9:27the Jews fixed it so that they and their descendants and all who joined them should, without fail, keep these two days according to what was written and at the time appointed every year.Esther 9:28These days should be remembered and kept throughout every generation, in every clan, in every province, and in every city; and these days of Purim should never fall into disuse among the Jews, nor should the commemoration of them cease among their descendants.