Listen to advice ¹  and receive discipline, that ²  you may become wise ³  by the end of your life. ⁴ 

Gad went to David and told him, “This is what the Lord says: ‘Pick one of these:

Then the priests and the Levites took charge of ¹  the silver, the gold, and the vessels that had been weighed out, to transport them to Jerusalem to the temple of our God.

So the Jews committed themselves to continue what they had begun to do and to what Mordecai had written to them.

But he replied, ¹  “You’re talking like one of the godless ²  women would do! Should we receive ³  what is good from God, and not also ⁴  receive ⁵  what is evil?” ⁶  In all this Job did not sin by what he said. ⁷ 

You are to make fifty loops on the one curtain, and you are to make fifty loops on the end curtain which is on the second set, so that the loops are opposite one to another. ¹ 

He made fifty loops on the first curtain, and he made fifty loops on the end curtain that was in the second set, with the loops opposite one another.

They slaughtered the bulls, and the priests took the blood and splashed it on the altar. Then they slaughtered the rams and splashed the blood on the altar; next they slaughtered the lambs and splashed the blood on the altar.

But a spirit ¹  empowered ²  Amasai, the leader of the thirty warriors, and he said: ³  “We are yours, O David! We support ⁴  you, O son of Jesse! May you greatly prosper! ⁵  May those who help you prosper! ⁶  Indeed ⁷  your God helps you!” So David accepted them and made them leaders of raiding bands.

The priests then entered the Lord’s temple to purify it; they brought out to the courtyard of the Lord’s temple every ceremonially unclean thing they discovered inside. ¹  The Levites took them out to the Kidron Valley.

When Esther’s female attendants and her eunuchs came and informed her about Mordecai’s behavior, ¹  the queen was overcome with anguish. Although she sent garments for Mordecai to put on so that he could remove his sackcloth, he would not accept them.

Therefore, because of the account found in this letter and what they had faced in this regard and what had happened to them, the Jews established as binding on themselves, their descendants, and all who joined their company that they should observe these two days without fail, just as written and at the appropriate time on an annual basis.