The Passover Celebrated

²¹ The king commanded all the people, “Keep the Passover to the Lord your God as prescribed in this book of the covenant.”^(A)

The Passover Reviewed

16 “Observe the month^[a] of Abib by keeping the Passover to the Lord your God, for in the month of Abib the Lord your God brought you out of Egypt by night.^{(A) 2} You shall offer the Passover sacrifice to the Lord your God from the flock and the herd, at the place that the Lord will choose as a dwelling for his name.^{(B) 3} You must not eat with it anything leavened. For seven days you shall eat unleavened bread with it—the bread of affliction—because you came out of the land of Egypt in great haste, so that all the days of your life you may remember the day of your departure from the land of Egypt.^{(C) 4} No leaven shall be seen with you in all your territory for seven days, and none of the meat of what you slaughter on the evening of the first day shall remain until morning.^{(D) 5} You are not permitted to 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 as a dwelling for his name, only there shall you offer the Passover sacrifice, in the evening at sunset, the time of day when you departed from Egypt.^{(E) 7} You shall cook it and eat it at the place that the Lord your God will choose; the next morning you may go back to your tents.^{(F) 8} For six days you shall continue to eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day there shall be a solemn assembly for the Lord your God, when you shall do no work.^(G)

² “Let the Israelites keep the Passover at its appointed time.^{(A) 3} On the fourteenth day of this month, at twilight,^[a] you shall keep it at its appointed time; according to all its statutes and all its regulations you shall keep it.” ⁴ So Moses told the Israelites that they should keep the Passover. ⁵ They kept the Passover in the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, at twilight,^[b] in the wilderness of Sinai. Just as the Lord had commanded Moses, so the Israelites did.^(B)

Celebration of the Passover

35 Josiah kept a Passover to the Lord in Jerusalem; they slaughtered the Passover lamb on the fourteenth day of the first month.^{(A) 2} He appointed the priests to their offices and encouraged them in the service of the house of the Lord.^{(B) 3} He said to the Levites who taught all Israel and who were holy to the Lord, “Put the holy ark in the house that Solomon son of David, king of Israel, built; you need no longer carry it on your shoulders. Now serve the Lord your God and his people Israel.^{(C) 4} Make preparations by your ancestral houses by your divisions, following the written directions of King David of Israel and the written directions of his son Solomon.^{(D) 5} Take position in the holy place according to the groupings of the ancestral houses of your kindred the people, and let there be Levites for each division of an ancestral house.^{[a](E) 6} Slaughter the Passover lamb, sanctify yourselves, and on behalf of your kindred make preparations, acting according to the word of the Lord by Moses.”^(F)

⁷ Then Josiah contributed to the people, as Passover offerings for all who were present, lambs and kids from the flock to the number of thirty thousand and three thousand bulls; these were from the king’s possessions.^{(G) 8} His officials contributed willingly to the people, to the priests, and to the Levites. Hilkiah, Zechariah, and Jehiel, the chief officers of the house of God, gave to the priests for the Passover offerings two thousand six hundred lambs and kids and three hundred bulls. ⁹ Conaniah also, and his brothers Shemaiah and Nethanel, and Hashabiah and Jeiel and Jozabad, the chiefs of the Levites, gave to the Levites for the Passover offerings five thousand lambs and kids and five hundred bulls.^(H)

¹⁰ When the service had been prepared, the priests stood in their place and the Levites in their divisions according to the king’s command.^{(I) 11} They slaughtered the Passover lamb, and the priests dashed the blood that they received^[b] from them, while the Levites did the skinning.^{(J) 12} They set aside the burnt offerings so that they might distribute them according to the groupings of the ancestral houses of the people, to offer to the Lord, as it is written in the book of Moses. And they did the same with the bulls. ¹³ They roasted the Passover lamb with fire according to the ordinance, and they boiled the holy offerings in pots, in caldrons, and in pans and carried them quickly to all the people.^{(K) 14} Afterward they made preparations for themselves and for the priests, because the priests the descendants of Aaron were occupied in offering the burnt offerings and the fat parts until night, so the Levites made preparations for themselves and for the priests, the descendants of Aaron. ¹⁵ The singers, the descendants of Asaph, were in their place according to the command of David, and Asaph, and Heman, and the king’s seer Jeduthun. The gatekeepers were at each gate; they did not need to interrupt their service, for their kindred the Levites made preparations for them.^(L)

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 The people of Israel who were present kept the Passover at that time and the Festival of Unleavened Bread seven days.^{(M) 18} No Passover like it had been kept in Israel since the days of the prophet Samuel; none of the kings of Israel had kept such a Passover as was kept by Josiah, by the priests and the Levites, by all Judah and Israel who were present, and by the inhabitants of Jerusalem.^{(N) 19} In the eighteenth year of the reign of Josiah, this Passover was kept.

Offerings at Passover

¹⁶ “On the fourteenth day of the first month there shall be a Passover offering to the Lord.^{(A) 17} And on the fifteenth day of this month is a festival; seven days shall unleavened bread be eaten.^{(B) 18} On the first day there shall be a holy convocation. You shall not work at your occupations.^{(C) 19} You shall offer an offering by fire,^[a] a burnt offering to the Lord: two young bulls, one ram, and seven male lambs a year old; see that they are without blemish. ²⁰ Their grain offering shall be of choice flour mixed with oil: three-tenths of an ephah shall you offer for a bull and two-tenths for a ram; ²¹ one-tenth shall you offer for each of the seven lambs; ²² also one male goat for a purification offering, to make atonement for you. ²³ You shall offer these in addition to the burnt offering of the morning, which belongs to the regular burnt offering.^{(D) 24} In the same way you shall offer daily, for seven days, the food of an offering by fire,^[b] a pleasing odor to the Lord; it shall be offered in addition to the regular burnt offering and its drink offering. ²⁵ And on the seventh day you shall have a holy convocation; you shall not work at your occupations.^(E)

⁵ In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, at twilight,^[a] there shall be a Passover offering to the Lord,^{(A) 6} and on the fifteenth day of the same month is the Festival of Unleavened Bread to the Lord; seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. ⁷ On the first day you shall have a holy convocation; you shall not work at your occupations.^{(B) 8} For seven days you shall present the Lord’s offerings by fire;^[b] on the seventh day there shall be a holy convocation: you shall not work at your occupations.”

³ Tell the whole congregation of Israel that on the tenth of this month they are to take a lamb for each family, a lamb for each household. ⁴ If a household is too small for a whole lamb, it shall join its closest neighbor in obtaining one; the lamb shall be divided in proportion to the number of people who eat of it. ⁵ Your lamb shall be without blemish, a year-old male; you may take it from the sheep or from the goats.^{(A) 6} You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month; then the whole assembled congregation of Israel shall slaughter it at twilight.^{(B) 7} They shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. ⁸ They shall eat the lamb that same night; they shall eat it roasted over the fire with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.^{(C) 9} Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water but roasted over the fire, with its head, legs, and inner organs. ¹⁰ You shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn with fire.^{(D) 11} This is how you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand, and you shall eat it hurriedly. It is the Passover of the Lord.^{(E) 12} I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike down every firstborn in the land of Egypt, from human to animal, and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord.^{(F) 13} The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live: when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.

¹⁴ “This day shall be a day of remembrance for you. You shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord; throughout your generations you shall observe it as a perpetual ordinance.^{(G) 15} Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread; on the first day you shall remove leaven from your houses, for whoever eats leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day shall be cut off from Israel.^{(H) 16} On the first day you shall hold a solemn assembly and on the seventh day a solemn assembly; no work shall be done on those days; only what everyone must eat, that alone may be prepared by you.^{(I) 17} You shall observe the Festival of Unleavened Bread, for on this very day I brought your companies out of the land of Egypt: you shall observe this day throughout your generations as a perpetual ordinance.^{(J) 18} In the first month, from the evening of the fourteenth day until the evening of the twenty-first day, you shall eat unleavened bread.^{(K) 19} For seven days no leaven shall be found in your houses, for whoever eats what is leavened shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether an alien or a native of the land.^{(L) 20} You shall eat nothing leavened; in all your settlements you shall eat unleavened bread.”