The Passover

¹The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron in Egypt:

²“This month is to be the first month of the year for you.

³Give these instructions to the whole community of Israel: On the tenth day of this month each man must choose either a lamb or a young goat for his household.

⁴If his family is too small to eat a whole animal, he and his next-door neighbor may share an animal, in proportion to the number of people and the amount that each person can eat.

⁵You may choose either a sheep or a goat, but it must be a one-year-old male without any defects.

⁶Then, on the evening of the fourteenth day of the month, the whole community of Israel will kill the animals.

⁷The people are to take some of the blood and put it on the doorposts and above the doors of the houses in which the animals are to be eaten.

⁸That night the meat is to be roasted, and eaten with bitter herbs and with bread made without yeast.

⁹Do not eat any of it raw or boiled, but eat it roasted whole, including the head, the legs, and the internal organs.

¹⁰You must not leave any of it until morning; if any is left over, it must be burned.

¹¹You are to eat it quickly, for you are to be dressed for travel, with your sandals on your feet and your walking stick in your hand. It is the Passover Festival to honor me, the Lord.

¹²“On that night I will go through the land of Egypt, killing every first-born male, both human and animal, and punishing all the gods of Egypt. I am the Lord.

¹³The blood on the doorposts will be a sign to mark the houses in which you live. When I see the blood, I will pass over you and will not harm you when I punish the Egyptians.

¹⁴You must celebrate this day as a religious festival to remind you of what I, the Lord, have done. Celebrate it for all time to come.”

The Festival of Unleavened Bread

¹⁵The Lord said, “For seven days you must not eat any bread made with yeast—eat only unleavened bread. On the first day you are to get rid of all the yeast in your houses, for if anyone during those seven days eats bread made with yeast, he shall no longer be considered one of my people.

¹⁶On the first day and again on the seventh day you are to meet for worship. No work is to be done on those days, but you may prepare food.

¹⁷Keep this festival, because it was on this day that I brought your tribes out of Egypt. For all time to come you must celebrate this day as a festival.

¹⁸From the evening of the fourteenth day of the first month to the evening of the twenty-first day, you must not eat any bread made with yeast.

^19-20For seven days no yeast must be found in your houses, for if anyone, native-born or foreign, eats bread made with yeast, he shall no longer be considered one of my people.”

The First Passover

²¹Moses called for all the leaders of Israel and said to them, “Each of you is to choose a lamb or a young goat and kill it, so that your families can celebrate Passover.

²²Take a sprig of hyssop, dip it in the bowl containing the animal's blood, and wipe the blood on the doorposts and the beam above the door of your house. Not one of you is to leave the house until morning.

²³When the Lord goes through Egypt to kill the Egyptians, he will see the blood on the beams and the doorposts and will not let the Angel of Death enter your houses and kill you.

²⁴You and your children must obey these rules forever.

²⁵When you enter the land that the Lord has promised to give you, you must perform this ritual.

²⁶When your children ask you, ‘What does this ritual mean?’

²⁷you will answer, ‘It is the sacrifice of Passover to honor the Lord, because he passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt. He killed the Egyptians, but spared us.’” The Israelites knelt down and worshiped.

²⁸Then they went and did what the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron.

The Death of the First-Born

²⁹At midnight the Lord killed all the first-born sons in Egypt, from the king's son, who was heir to the throne, to the son of the prisoner in the dungeon; all the first-born of the animals were also killed.

³⁰That night, the king, his officials, and all the other Egyptians were awakened. There was loud crying throughout Egypt, because there was not one home in which there was not a dead son.

³¹That same night the king sent for Moses and Aaron and said, “Get out, you and your Israelites! Leave my country; go and worship the Lord, as you asked.

³²Take your sheep, goats, and cattle, and leave. Also pray for a blessing on me.”

³³The Egyptians urged the people to hurry and leave the country; they said, “We will all be dead if you don't leave.”

³⁴So the people filled their baking pans with unleavened dough, wrapped them in clothing, and carried them on their shoulders.

³⁵The Israelites had done as Moses had said, and had asked the Egyptians for gold and silver jewelry and for clothes.

³⁶The Lord made the Egyptians respect the people and give them what they asked for. In this way the Israelites carried away the wealth of the Egyptians.

The Israelites Leave Egypt

³⁷The Israelites set out on foot from Rameses for Sukkoth. There were about 600,000 men, not counting women and children.

³⁸A large number of other people and many sheep, goats, and cattle also went with them.

³⁹They baked unleavened bread from the dough that they had brought out of Egypt, for they had been driven out of Egypt so suddenly that they did not have time to get their food ready or to prepare leavened dough.

⁴⁰The Israelites had lived in Egypt for 430 years.

⁴¹On the day the 430 years ended, all the tribes of the Lord's people left Egypt.

⁴²It was a night when the Lord kept watch to bring them out of Egypt; this same night is dedicated to the Lord for all time to come as a night when the Israelites must keep watch.

Regulations about Passover

⁴³The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “These are the Passover regulations: No foreigner shall eat the Passover meal,

⁴⁴but any slave that you have bought may eat it if you circumcise him first.

⁴⁵No temporary resident or hired worker may eat it.

⁴⁶The whole meal must be eaten in the house in which it was prepared; it must not be taken outside. And do not break any of the animal's bones.

⁴⁷The whole community of Israel must celebrate this festival,

⁴⁸but no uncircumcised man may eat it. If a foreigner has settled among you and wants to celebrate Passover to honor the Lord, you must first circumcise all the males of his household. He is then to be treated like a native-born Israelite and may join in the festival.

⁴⁹The same regulations apply to native-born Israelites and to foreigners who settle among you.”

⁵⁰All the Israelites obeyed and did what the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron.

⁵¹On that day the Lord brought the Israelite tribes out of Egypt.

Aaron Offers Sacrifices

¹The day after the ordination rites were completed, Moses called Aaron and his sons and the leaders of Israel.

²He said to Aaron, “Take a young bull and a ram without any defects and offer them to the Lord, the bull for a sin offering and the ram for a burnt offering.

³Then tell the people of Israel to take a male goat for a sin offering, a one-year-old calf, and a one-year-old lamb without any defects for a burnt offering,

⁴and a bull and a ram for a fellowship offering. They are to sacrifice them to the Lord with the grain offering mixed with oil. They must do this because the Lord will appear to them today.”

⁵They brought to the front of the Tent everything that Moses had commanded, and the whole community assembled there to worship the Lord.

⁶Moses said, “The Lord has commanded you to do all this, so that the dazzling light of his presence can appear to you.”

⁷Then he said to Aaron, “Go to the altar and offer the sin offering and the burnt offering to take away your sins and the sins of the people. Present this offering to take away the sins of the people, just as the Lord commanded.”

⁸Aaron went to the altar and killed the young bull which was for his own sin offering.

⁹His sons brought him the blood, and he dipped his finger in it, put some of it on the projections at the corners of the altar, and poured out the rest of it at the base of the altar.

¹⁰Then he burned on the altar the fat, the kidneys, and the best part of the liver, just as the Lord had commanded Moses.

¹¹But he burned the meat and the skin outside the camp.

¹²He killed the animal which was for his own burnt offering. His sons brought him the blood, and he threw it on all four sides of the altar.

¹³They handed him the head and the other pieces of the animal, and he burned them on the altar.

¹⁴Then he washed the internal organs and the hind legs and burned them on the altar on top of the rest of the burnt offering.

¹⁵After that, he presented the people's offerings. He took the goat that was to be offered for the people's sins, killed it, and offered it, as he had done with his own sin offering.

¹⁶He also brought the animal for the burnt offering and offered it according to the regulations.

¹⁷He presented the grain offering and took a handful of flour and burned it on the altar. (This was in addition to the daily burnt offering.)

¹⁸He killed the bull and the ram as a fellowship offering for the people. His sons brought him the blood, and he threw it on all four sides of the altar.

¹⁹Aaron put the fat parts of the bull and the ram

²⁰on top of the breasts of the animals and carried it all to the altar. He burned the fat on the altar

²¹and presented the breasts and the right hind legs as the special gift to the Lord for the priests, as Moses had commanded.

²²When Aaron had finished all the sacrifices, he raised his hands over the people and blessed them, and then stepped down.

²³Moses and Aaron went into the Tent of the Lord's presence, and when they came out, they blessed the people, and the dazzling light of the Lord's presence appeared to all the people.

²⁴Suddenly the Lord sent a fire, and it consumed the burnt offering and the fat parts on the altar. When the people saw it, they all shouted and bowed down with their faces to the ground.

A Passover Song

¹When the people of Israel left Egypt, when Jacob's descendants left that foreign land,

²Judah became the Lord's holy people, Israel became his own possession.

³The Red Sea looked and ran away; the Jordan River stopped flowing.

⁴The mountains skipped like goats; the hills jumped around like lambs.

⁵What happened, Sea, to make you run away? And you, O Jordan, why did you stop flowing?

⁶You mountains, why did you skip like goats? You hills, why did you jump around like lambs?

⁷Tremble, earth, at the Lord's coming, at the presence of the God of Jacob,

⁸who changes rocks into pools of water and solid cliffs into flowing springs.