Solomon offered a sacrifice of fellowship offerings to Adonai: 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep. So the king and all the children of Israel dedicated the House of Adonai.
So this Sheshbazzar came and laid the foundations of the House of God in Jerusalem. From that time until now it has been under construction, yet it is not yet finished.’
Though we are slaves, our God has not forsaken us in our bondage. He has extended lovingkindness to us in the sight of the kings of Persia, reviving us in order to restore the House of our God, to raise up its ruins, and to give us a wall in Judah and in Jerusalem.
Dispatches were sent by couriers into all the king’s provinces, stating to destroy, slay, and annihilate all the Jews—from the youth to the elderly, both little children and women—on a single day, the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, the month of Adar, and to plunder their possessions.
In the first month (that is the month of Nisan), in the twelfth year of King Ahasuerus, they cast the pur (that is, ‘the lot’) in the presence of Haman from day to day and month to month, up to the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar.
Consequently, on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month (that is the month Adar), the king’s edict and his law drew near to be carried out. On that day the enemies of the Jews had hoped to overpower them, but contrary to expectations the Jews gained the upper hand over those that hated them.
The Jews in Shushan gathered together on the fourteenth day of the month Adar, and they killed 300 men in Shushan, but they did not put their hands on the plunder.
That is why the rural Jews—those living in unwalled villages—make the fourteenth day of the month Adar a day of gladness and feasting, a day of sending presents of food to one another.
“Therefore,” thus says Adonai, “I will return to Jerusalem with compassion. My House will be built there,” declares Adonai-Tzva’ot “and a measuring line will be stretched out over Jerusalem.”
“The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this House. His hands will also finish it. Then you will know that Adonai-Tzva’ot has sent me to you.