The First Passover
1. Now the LORD said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt,
2. “This month is the beginning of months for you; it shall be the first month of your year.
3. Tell the whole congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month, each man must select a lamb for his family, one per household.
4. If the household is too small for a whole lamb, they are to share with the nearest neighbor, based on the number of people, and apportion the lamb accordingly.
5. You must have an unblemished lamb, a year-old male; you may take it from the sheep or the goats.
6. You must care for it until the fourteenth day of the month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel will slaughter the animals at twilight.
7. They are to take some of the blood and put it on the two sideposts and tops of the doorframes of the houses in which they eat the lambs.
8. And on that night they are to eat the meat, roasted over the fire. They are to eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.
9. Do not eat any of the meat raw or cooked in boiling water, but only roasted over the fire—its head and legs and inner parts.
10. Do not leave any of it until morning; before the morning you must burn up any part that is left over.
11. This is how you are to eat it: You must be fully dressed for travel, with your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand. You are to eat in haste; it is the LORD’s Passover.
12. On that night I will pass through the land of Egypt and strike down every firstborn male, both man and beast, and I will execute judgment against all the gods of Egypt. I am the LORD.
13. The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No plague will fall on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.
The Feast of Unleavened Bread
14. And this day will be a memorial for you, and you are to celebrate it as a feast to the LORD, as a lasting ordinance for the generations to come.
15. For seven days you must eat unleavened bread. On the first day you are to remove the yeast from your houses. Whoever eats anything leavened from the first day through the seventh must be cut off from Israel.
16. On the first day you are to hold a sacred assembly, and another on the seventh day. You must not do any work on those days, except to prepare the meals—that is all you may do.
17. So you are to observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for on this very day I brought your divisions out of the land of Egypt. You must observe this day as a lasting ordinance for the generations to come.
18. In the first month you are to eat unleavened bread, from the evening of the fourteenth day until the evening of the twenty-first day.
19. For seven days there must be no leaven found in your houses. If anyone eats something leavened, that person, whether a foreigner or native of the land, must be cut off from the congregation of Israel.
20. Do not eat anything leavened; in all your dwellings you must eat unleavened bread.”
21. Then Moses summoned all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Go at once and select for yourselves a lamb for each family, and slaughter the Passover lamb.
22. Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it into the blood in the basin, and brush the top and the two sideposts of the doorframe with some of the blood. None of you shall go out the door of his house until morning.
23. When the LORD passes through to strike down the Egyptians, He will see the blood on the top and the two sideposts and pass over the door; so He will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses and strike you down.
24. And you are to keep this command as a perpetual ordinance for you and your descendants.
25. When you enter the land that the LORD will give you as He promised, you are to observe this service.
26. And when your children ask you, ‘What does this service mean to you?’
27. you are to reply, ‘It is the Passover sacrifice to the LORD, who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt when He struck down the Egyptians and spared our homes.’” Then the people bowed down and worshiped.
28. So the Israelites did just as the LORD had commanded Moses and Aaron.
The Tenth Plague: Death of the Firstborn
29. And at midnight the LORD struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne, to the firstborn of the prisoner in the dungeon, as well as all the firstborn among the livestock.
30. Pharaoh arose in the night, he and all his officials and all the Egyptians, and there was loud wailing in Egypt; for there was no house without someone dead.
The Exodus Begins
31. Then Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron in the night and said, “Get up, leave my people, you and the Israelites! Go, worship the LORD as you have requested.
32. Take your flocks and herds as well, just as you have said, and go. And bless me also!”
33. Now the Egyptians urged the people on, in order to send them quickly out of the land, for they said, “We will all die!”
34. So the people took their dough before it was leavened, carrying it on their shoulders in kneading troughs wrapped in clothing.
35. The Israelites did as Moses had instructed and asked the Egyptians for articles of silver and gold, and for clothing.
36. And the LORD gave the people such favor in the sight of the Egyptians that they granted their request. In this way they plundered the Egyptians.
37. The Israelites journeyed from Rameses to Succoth with about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides women and children.
38. A mixed multitude also went up with them, along with great droves of livestock, both flocks and herds.
39. And they baked unleavened cakes of the dough they had brought out of Egypt; it was not leavened because they were driven out of Egypt and could not wait, nor had they prepared any provisions for themselves.
40. Now the duration of the Israelites’ stay in Egypt was 430 years.
41. At the end of the 430 years, to the very day, all the divisions of the LORD departed from the land of Egypt.
42. Because the LORD had brought the Israelites out of Egypt by night, they must keep watch for all generations to come.
Instructions for the Passover
43. And the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, “This is the ordinance of the Passover. No foreigner may eat it,
44. but any slave a man has purchased may eat it, provided you have circumcised him first.
45. A temporary resident or hired hand shall not eat the Passover.
46. It must be eaten inside one house; take none of the meat outside the house. Do not break any of the bones.
47. The whole congregation of Israel must celebrate it.
48. If an alien resides with you and wants to keep the Passover to the LORD, let all his males be circumcised, and then let him come near and keep it; he will be like a native of the land. But no uncircumcised man may eat it.
49. The same law applies to the native-born and to the foreigner residing among you.”
50. So all the Israelites did this; they did just as the LORD had commanded Moses and Aaron.
51. And on that very day the LORD brought the Israelites out of the land of Egypt by their divisions.