22. As the days on which the Jews got rest from their enemies, and as the month which was turned for them from sorrow to gladness and from mourning into a holiday–that they should make them days of feasting and gladness, days of sending choice portions to one another and gifts to the poor.
23. So the Jews undertook to do as they had begun and as Mordecai had written to them–
24. Because Haman 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 find a lucky day] to crush and consume and destroy them.
25. But when Esther brought the matter before the king, he commanded in writing that Haman's wicked scheme which he had devised against the Jews should return upon his own head, and that he and his sons should be hanged on the gallows.