Exodus 10:1-13:16

Complete Jewish Bible

Parashah 15: Bo (Go) 10:1–13:16

10 Adonai said to Moshe, “Go to Pharaoh, for I have made him and his servants hardhearted, so that I can demonstrate these signs of mine among them, ²so that you can tell your son and grandson about what I did to Egypt and about my signs that I demonstrated among them, and so that you will all know that I am Adonai.” ³Moshe and Aharon went in to Pharaoh and said to him, “Here is what Adonai, God of the Hebrews, says: ‘How much longer will you refuse to submit to me? Let my people go, so that they can worship me. ⁴Otherwise, if you refuse to let my people go, tomorrow I will bring locusts into your territory. ⁵One won’t be able to see the ground, so completely will the locusts cover it. They will eat anything you still have that escaped the hail, including every tree you have growing in the field. ⁶They will fill your houses and those of your servants and of all the Egyptians. It will be like nothing your fathers or their fathers have ever seen since the day they were born until today.’” Then he turned his back and left.

⁷Pharaoh’s servants said to him, “How much longer must this fellow be a snare for us? Let the people go and worship Adonai their God. Don’t you understand yet that Egypt is being destroyed?” ⁸So Moshe and Aharon were brought to Pharaoh again, and he said to them, “Go, worship Adonai your God. But who exactly is going?” ⁹Moshe answered, “We will go with our young and our old, our sons and our daughters; and we will go with our flocks and herds; for we must celebrate a feast to Adonai.” ¹⁰Pharaoh said to them, “Adonai certainly will be with you if I ever let you go with your children! It’s clear that you are up to no good. ¹¹Nothing doing! Just the men among you may go and worship Adonai. That’s what you want, isn’t it?” And they were driven out of Pharaoh’s presence.

(ii) ¹²Adonai said to Moshe, “Reach out your hand over the land of Egypt, so that locusts will invade the land and eat every plant that the hail has left.” ¹³Moshe reached out with his staff over the land of Egypt, and Adonai caused an east wind to blow on the land all day and all night; and in the morning the east wind brought the locusts. ¹⁴The locusts went up over all the land of Egypt and settled throughout Egypt’s territory. It was an invasion more severe than there had ever been before or will ever be again. ¹⁵They completely covered the ground, so that the ground looked black. They ate every plant growing from the ground and all the fruit of the trees left by the hail. Not one green thing remained, not a tree and not a plant in the field, in all the land of Egypt.

¹⁶Pharaoh hurried to summon Moshe and Aharon and said, “I have sinned against Adonai your God and against you. ¹⁷Now, therefore, please forgive my sin just this once; and intercede with Adonai your God, so that he will at least take away from me this deadly plague!” ¹⁸He went out from Pharaoh and interceded with Adonai. ¹⁹Adonai reversed the wind and made it blow very strongly from the west. It took up the locusts and drove them into the Sea of Suf; not one locust remained on Egyptian soil. ²⁰But Adonai made Pharaoh hardhearted, and he didn’t let the people of Isra’el go.

²¹Adonai said to Moshe, “Reach out your hand toward the sky, and there will be darkness over the land of Egypt, darkness so thick it can be felt!” ²²Moshe reached out his hand toward the sky, and there was a thick darkness in the entire land of Egypt for three days. ²³People couldn’t see each other, and no one went anywhere for three days. But all the people of Isra’el had light in their homes.

(iii) ²⁴Pharaoh summoned Moshe and said, “Go, worship Adonai; only leave your flocks and herds behind — your children may go with you.” ²⁵Moshe answered, “You must also see to it that we have sacrifices and burnt offerings, so that we can sacrifice to Adonai our God. ²⁶Our livestock will also go with us — not a hoof will be left behind — because we must choose some of them to worship Adonai our God, and we don’t know which ones we will need to worship Adonai until we get there.” ²⁷But Adonai made Pharaoh hardhearted, and he would not let them go. ²⁸Pharaoh said to them, “Get away from me! And you had better not see my face again, because the day you see my face, you will die!” ²⁹Moshe answered, “Well spoken! I will see your face no more.”

11 Adonai said to Moshe, “I’m going to bring still one more plague on Pharaoh and Egypt, and after that he will let you leave here. When he does let you go, he will throw you out completely! ²Now tell the people that every man is to ask his neighbor and every woman her neighbor for gold and silver jewelry.” ³Adonai made the Egyptians favorably disposed toward the people. Moreover, Moshe was regarded by Pharaoh’s servants and the people as a very great man in the land of Egypt.

(iv) ⁴Moshe said, “Here is what Adonai says: ‘About midnight I will go out into Egypt, ⁵and all the firstborn in the land of Egypt will die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh sitting on his throne to the firstborn of the slave-girl at the handmill, and all the firstborn of the livestock. ⁶There will be a horrendous wailing throughout all the land of Egypt — there has never been another like it, and there never will be again. ⁷But not even a dog’s growl will be heard against any of the people of Isra’el, neither against people nor against animals. In this way you will realize that Adonai distinguishes between Egyptians and Isra’el. ⁸All your servants will come down to me, prostrate themselves before me and say, “Get out! — you and all the people who follow you!” and after that, I will go out!’ ” And he went out from Pharaoh in the heat of anger. ⁹Adonai said to Moshe, “Pharaoh will not listen to you, so that still more of my wonders will be shown in the land of Egypt.”

¹⁰Moshe and Aharon did all these wonders before Pharaoh, but Adonai had made Pharaoh hardhearted, and he didn’t let the people of Isra’el leave his land.

12 Adonai spoke to Moshe and Aharon in the land of Egypt; he said, ²“You are to begin your calendar with this month; it will be the first month of the year for you. ³Speak to all the assembly of Isra’el and say, ‘On the tenth day of this month, each man is to take a lamb or kid for his family, one per household — ⁴except that if the household is too small for a whole lamb or kid, then he and his next-door neighbor should share one, dividing it in proportion to the number of people eating it. ⁵Your animal must be without defect, a male in its first year, and you may choose it from either the sheep or the goats.

⁶“‘You are to keep it until the fourteenth day of the month, and then the entire assembly of the community of Isra’el will slaughter it at dusk. ⁷They are to take some of the blood and smear it on the two sides and top of the door-frame at the entrance of the house in which they eat it. ⁸That night, they are to eat the meat, roasted in the fire; they are to eat it with matzah and maror. ⁹Don’t eat it raw or boiled, but roasted in the fire, with its head, the lower parts of its legs and its inner organs. ¹⁰Let nothing of it remain till morning; if any of it does remain, burn it up completely.

¹¹“‘Here is how you are to eat it: with your belt fastened, your shoes on your feet and your staff in your hand; and you are to eat it hurriedly. It is Adonai’s Pesach [Passover]. ¹²For that night, I will pass through the land of Egypt and kill all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both men and animals; and I will execute judgment against all the gods of Egypt; I am Adonai. ¹³The blood will serve you as a sign marking the houses where you are; when I see the blood, I will pass over ^[a] you — when I strike the land of Egypt, the death blow will not strike you.

¹⁴“‘This will be a day for you to remember and celebrate as a festival to Adonai; from generation to generation you are to celebrate it by a perpetual regulation.

¹⁵“‘For seven days you are to eat matzah — on the first day remove the leaven from your houses. For whoever eats hametz [leavened bread] from the first to the seventh day is to be cut off from Isra’el. ¹⁶On the first and seventh days, you are to have an assembly set aside for God. On these days no work is to be done, except what each must do to prepare his food; you may do only that. ¹⁷You are to observe the festival of matzah, for on this very day I brought your divisions out of the land of Egypt. Therefore, you are to observe this day from generation to generation by a perpetual regulation. ¹⁸From the evening of the fourteenth day of the first month until the evening of the twenty-first day, you are to eat matzah. ¹⁹During those seven days, no leaven is to be found in your houses. Whoever eats food with hametz in it is to be cut off from the community of Isra’el — it doesn’t matter whether he is a foreigner or a citizen of the land. ²⁰Eat nothing with hametz in it. Wherever you live, eat matzah.’”

(v) ²¹Then Moshe called for all the leaders of Isra’el and said, “Select and take lambs for your families, and slaughter the Pesach lamb. ²²Take a bunch of hyssop leaves and dip it in the blood which is in the basin, and smear it on the two sides and top of the door-frame. Then, none of you is to go out the door of his house until morning. ²³For Adonai will pass through to kill the Egyptians; but when he sees the blood on the top and on the two sides, Adonai will pass over the door and will not allow the Slaughterer to enter your houses and kill you. ²⁴You are to observe this as a law, you and your descendants forever.

²⁵“When you come to the land which Adonai will give you, as he has promised, you are to observe this ceremony. ²⁶When your children ask you, ‘What do you mean by this ceremony?’ ²⁷say, ‘It is the sacrifice of Adonai’s Pesach [Passover], because [Adonai] passed over the houses of the people of Isra’el in Egypt, when he killed the Egyptians but spared our houses.’” The people of Isra’el bowed their heads and worshipped. ²⁸Then the people of Isra’el went and did as Adonai had ordered Moshe and Aharon — that is what they did.

(vi) ²⁹At midnight Adonai killed all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh sitting on his throne to the firstborn of the prisoner in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of livestock. ³⁰Pharaoh got up in the night, he, all his servants and all the Egyptians; and there was horrendous wailing in Egypt; for there wasn’t a single house without someone dead in it. ³¹He summoned Moshe and Aharon by night and said, “Up and leave my people, both you and the people of Isra’el; and go, serve Adonai as you said. ³²Take both your flocks and your herds, as you said; and get out of here! But bless me, too.” ³³The Egyptians pressed to send the people out of the land quickly, because they said, “Otherwise we’ll all be dead!”

³⁴The people took their dough before it had become leavened and wrapped their kneading bowls in their clothes on their shoulders. ³⁵The people of Isra’el had done what Moshe had said — they had asked the Egyptians to give them silver and gold jewelry and clothing; ³⁶and Adonai had made the Egyptians so favorably disposed toward the people that they had let them have whatever they requested. Thus they plundered the Egyptians.

³⁷The people of Isra’el traveled from Ra‘amses to Sukkot, some six hundred thousand men on foot, not counting children. ³⁸A mixed crowd also went up with them, as well as livestock in large numbers, both flocks and herds. ³⁹They baked matzah loaves from the dough they had brought out of Egypt, since it was unleavened; because they had been driven out of Egypt without time to prepare supplies for themselves.

⁴⁰The time the people of Isra’el lived in Egypt was 430 years. ⁴¹At the end of 430 years to the day, all the divisions of Adonai left the land of Egypt. ⁴²This was a night when Adonai kept vigil to bring them out of the land of Egypt, and this same night continues to be a night when Adonai keeps vigil for all the people of Isra’el through all their generations.

⁴³Adonai said to Moshe and Aharon, “This is the regulation for the Pesach lamb: no foreigner is to eat it. ⁴⁴But if anyone has a slave he bought for money, when you have circumcised him, he may eat it. ⁴⁵Neither a traveler nor a hired servant may eat it. ⁴⁶It is to be eaten in one house. You are not to take any of the meat outside the house, and you are not to break any of its bones. ⁴⁷The whole community of Isra’el is to keep it. ⁴⁸If a foreigner staying with you wants to observe Adonai’s Pesach, all his males must be circumcised. Then he may take part and observe it; he will be like a citizen of the land. But no uncircumcised person is to eat it. ⁴⁹The same teaching is to apply equally to the citizen and to the foreigner living among you.”

⁵⁰All the people of Isra’el did just as Adonai had ordered Moshe and Aharon. ⁵¹On that very day, Adonai brought the people of Isra’el out of the land of Egypt by their divisions.

13 (vii) Adonai said to Moshe, ²“Set aside for me all the firstborn. Whatever is first from the womb among the people of Isra’el, both of humans and of animals, belongs to me.” ³Moshe said to the people, “Remember this day, on which you left Egypt, the abode of slavery; because Adonai, by the strength of his hand, has brought you out of this place. Do not eat hametz. ⁴You are leaving today, in the month of Aviv. ⁵When Adonai brings you into the land of the Kena‘ani, Hitti, Emori, Hivi and Y’vusi, which he swore to your ancestors to give you, a land flowing with milk and honey, you are to observe this ceremony in this month. ⁶For seven days you are to eat matzah, and the seventh day is to be a festival for Adonai. ⁷Matzah is to be eaten throughout the seven days; neither hametz nor leavening agents are to be seen with you throughout your territory. ⁸On that day you are to tell your son, ‘It is because of what Adonai did for me when I left Egypt.’

⁹“Moreover, it will serve you as a sign on your hand and as a reminder between your eyes, so that Adonai’s Torah may be on your lips; because with a strong hand Adonai brought you out of Egypt. ¹⁰Therefore you are to observe this regulation at its proper time, year after year. ¹¹When Adonai brings you into the land of the Kena‘ani, as he swore to you and your ancestors, and gives it to you, ¹²you are to set apart for Adonai everything that is first from the womb. Every firstborn male animal will belong to Adonai. ¹³Every firstborn from a donkey, you are to redeem with a lamb; but if you choose not to redeem it, you must break its neck. But from people, you are to redeem every firstborn son. (Maftir) ¹⁴When, at some future time, your son asks you, ‘What is this?’ then say to him, ‘With a strong hand Adonai brought us out of Egypt, out of the abode of slavery. ¹⁵When Pharaoh was unwilling to let us go, Adonai killed all the firstborn males in the land of Egypt, both the firstborn of humans and the firstborn of animals. This is why I sacrifice to Adonai any male that is first from the womb of an animal, but all the firstborn of my sons I redeem.’ ¹⁶This will serve as a sign on your hand and at the front of a headband around your forehead that with a strong hand Adonai brought us out of Egypt.”