Josiah Restores the Passover

²¹ And the king commanded all the people, ^(A)“Keep the Passover to the Lord your God, ^(B)as it is written in this Book of the Covenant.”

Passover

16 “Observe the ^(A)month of Abib and keep the Passover to the Lord your God, for ^(B)in the month of Abib the Lord your God brought you out of Egypt by night. ² And you shall offer the Passover sacrifice to the Lord your God, from the flock or ^(C)the herd, ^(D)at the place that the Lord will choose, to make his name dwell there. ³ You shall eat no leavened bread with it. ^(E)Seven days you shall eat it with unleavened bread, the bread of affliction—for you came out of the land of Egypt ^(F)in haste—that all the days of your life you may remember the day when you came out of the land of Egypt. ^4 (G)No leaven shall be seen with you in all your territory for seven days, ^(H)nor shall any of the flesh that you sacrifice on the evening of the first day remain all night until morning. ⁵ You may not offer the Passover sacrifice within any of your towns that the Lord your God is giving you, ⁶ but at the place that the Lord your God will choose, to make his name dwell in it, there you shall offer the Passover sacrifice, in the evening at sunset, at the time you came out of Egypt. ⁷ And you shall cook it and eat it at the place that the Lord your God will choose. And in the morning you shall turn and go to your tents. ⁸ For ^(I)six days you shall eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day there shall be ^(J)a solemn assembly to the Lord your God. You shall do no work on it.

² “Let the people of Israel keep the Passover at its appointed time. ^3 (A)On the fourteenth day of this month, at twilight, you shall keep it at its appointed time; according to all its statutes and all its rules you shall keep it.” ⁴ So Moses told the people of Israel that they should keep the Passover. ⁵ And they kept the Passover in the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, at twilight, in the wilderness of Sinai; according to all that the Lord commanded Moses, so the people of Israel did.

Josiah Keeps the Passover

35 ^(A)Josiah kept a Passover to the Lord in Jerusalem. And they slaughtered the Passover lamb ^(B)on the fourteenth day of the first month. ² He appointed the priests to their offices ^(C)and encouraged them in the service of the house of the Lord. ³ And he said to the Levites ^(D)who taught all Israel and who were holy to the Lord, “Put the holy ark in the house that Solomon the son of David, king of Israel, built. You need not carry it on your shoulders. Now serve the Lord your God and his people Israel. ⁴ Prepare yourselves ^(E)according to your fathers' houses by your divisions, ^(F)as prescribed in the writing of David king of Israel ^(G)and the document of Solomon his son. ⁵ And ^(H)stand in the Holy Place ^(I)according to the groupings of the fathers' houses of your brothers the lay people, and according to the division of the Levites by fathers' household. ⁶ And slaughter the Passover lamb, and ^(J)consecrate yourselves, and prepare for your brothers, to do according to the word of the Lord by^[a] Moses.”

⁷ Then Josiah contributed to the lay people, as Passover offerings for all who were present, lambs and young goats from the flock to the number of 30,000, and 3,000 bulls; ^(K)these were from the king's possessions. ⁸ And his officials contributed willingly to the people, to the priests, and to the Levites. ^(L)Hilkiah, Zechariah, and Jehiel, the chief officers of the house of God, gave to the priests for the Passover offerings 2,600 Passover lambs and 300 bulls. ⁹ Conaniah also, and Shemaiah and Nethanel his brothers, and Hashabiah and Jeiel and Jozabad, the chiefs of the Levites, gave to the Levites for the Passover offerings 5,000 lambs and young goats and 500 bulls.

¹⁰ When the service had been prepared for, the priests ^(M)stood in their place, ^(N)and the Levites in their divisions according to the king's command. ^11 (O)And they slaughtered the Passover lamb, and the priests ^(P)threw the blood that they received from them ^(Q)while the Levites flayed the sacrifices. ¹² And they set aside the burnt offerings that they might distribute them according to the groupings of the fathers' houses of the lay people, to offer to the Lord, as it is written in the Book of Moses. And so they did with the bulls. ^13 (R)And they roasted the Passover lamb with fire according to the rule; and they ^(S)boiled the holy offerings in pots, in cauldrons, and in pans, and carried them quickly to all the lay people. ¹⁴ And afterward they prepared for themselves and for the priests, because the priests, the sons of Aaron, were offering the burnt offerings and the fat parts until night; so the Levites prepared for themselves and for the priests, the sons of Aaron. ¹⁵ The singers, the sons of Asaph, were in their place ^(T)according to the command of David, and Asaph, and Heman, and Jeduthun the king's ^(U)seer; ^(V)and the gatekeepers were at each gate. They did not need to depart from their service, for their brothers the Levites prepared for them.

¹⁶ So all the service of the Lord was prepared that day, to keep the Passover and to offer burnt offerings on the altar of the Lord, according to the command of King Josiah. ¹⁷ And the people of Israel who were present kept the Passover at that time, ^(W)and the Feast of Unleavened Bread seven days. ^18 (X)No Passover like it had been kept in Israel since the days of Samuel the prophet. None of the kings of Israel had kept such a Passover as was kept by Josiah, and the priests and the Levites, and all Judah and Israel who were present, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. ¹⁹ In the eighteenth year of the reign of Josiah this Passover was kept.

Passover Offerings

^16 (A)“On the fourteenth day of the first month is the Lord's Passover, ^17 (B)and on the fifteenth day of this month is a feast. Seven days shall unleavened bread be eaten. ^18 (C)On the first day there shall be a holy convocation. You shall not do any ordinary work, ¹⁹ but offer a food offering, a burnt offering to the Lord: two bulls from the herd, one ram, and seven male lambs a year old; ^(D)see that they are without blemish; ²⁰ also their grain offering of fine flour mixed with oil; three tenths of an ephah shall you offer for a bull, and two tenths for a ram; ²¹ a tenth shall you offer for each of the seven lambs; ²² also ^(E)one male goat for a sin offering, to make atonement for you. ²³ You shall offer these besides the burnt offering of the morning, which is for a regular burnt offering. ²⁴ In the same way you shall offer daily, for seven days, the food of a food offering, with a pleasing aroma to the Lord. It shall be offered besides the regular burnt offering and its drink offering. ²⁵ And ^(F)on the seventh day you shall have a holy convocation. You shall not do any ordinary work.

^5 (A)In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at twilight,^[a] is the Lord's Passover. ⁶ And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the Feast of Unleavened Bread to the Lord; for seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. ^7 (B)On the first day you shall have a holy convocation; you shall not do any ordinary work. ⁸ But you shall present a food offering to the Lord for seven days. On the seventh day is a holy convocation; you shall not do any ordinary work.”

³ Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb ^(A)according to their fathers' houses, a lamb for a household. ⁴ And if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his nearest neighbor shall take according to the number of persons; according to what each can eat you shall make your count for the lamb. ⁵ Your lamb shall be ^(B)without blemish, a male a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats, ⁶ and you shall keep it until the ^(C)fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight.^[a]

⁷ “Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the ^(D)two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. ⁸ They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire; with ^(E)unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it. ⁹ Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but ^(F)roasted, its head with its legs and its inner parts. ¹⁰ And ^(G)you shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. ¹¹ In this manner you shall eat it: with ^(H)your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. And you shall eat it in haste. ^(I)It is the Lord's Passover. ¹² For ^(J)I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on ^(K)all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: ^(L)I am the Lord. ^13 (M)The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.

¹⁴ “This day shall be ^(N)for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord; throughout your generations, as a ^(O)statute forever, you shall keep it as a feast. ^15 (P)Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven out of your houses, for if anyone eats what is leavened, from the first day until the seventh day, ^(Q)that person shall be cut off from Israel. ¹⁶ On the first day you shall hold a ^(R)holy assembly, and on the seventh day a holy assembly. No work shall be done on those days. But what everyone needs to eat, that alone may be prepared by you. ¹⁷ And you shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for ^(S)on this very day I brought your ^(T)hosts out of the land of Egypt. Therefore you shall observe this day, throughout your generations, as a statute forever. ^18 (U)In the first month, from the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread until the twenty-first day of the month at evening. ^19 (V)For seven days no leaven is to be found in your houses. If anyone eats what is leavened, ^(W)that person will be cut off from the congregation of Israel, ^(X)whether he is a sojourner or a native of the land. ²⁰ You shall eat nothing leavened; in all your dwelling places you shall eat unleavened bread.”