The First Passover Instituted

12 The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, ² “This month shall mark for you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year for you.^{(A) 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.^{(B) 6} You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month; then the whole assembled congregation of Israel shall slaughter it at twilight.^{(C) 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.^{(D) 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.^{(E) 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.^{(F) 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.^{(G) 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.^(H)

⁴ John to the seven churches that are in Asia:

Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come and from the seven spirits who are before his throne,^{(A) 5} and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.

To him who loves us and freed^[a] us from our sins by his blood ⁶ and made us a kingdom, priests serving^[b] his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.^(B)

So it is to be. Amen.^(C)

⁸ “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.^(D)

A Vision of Christ

⁹ I, John, your brother who share with you the persecution and the kingdom and the endurance in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus.^{[c](E) 10} I was in the spirit^[d] on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet^{(F) 11} saying, “Write in a book what you see, and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus, to Smyrna, to Pergamum, to Thyatira, to Sardis, to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea.”

¹² Then I turned to see whose voice it was that spoke to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands,^{(G) 13} and in the midst of the lampstands I saw one like the Son of Man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash across his chest.^{(H) 14} His head and his hair were white as white wool, white as snow; his eyes were like a flame of fire;^{(I) 15} his feet were like burnished bronze, refined as in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of many waters.^{(J) 16} In his right hand he held seven stars, and from his mouth came a sharp, two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining with full force.^(K)

¹⁷ When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he placed his right hand on me, saying, “Do not be afraid; I am the First and the Last^{(L) 18} and the Living One. I was dead, and see, I am alive forever and ever, and I have the keys of Death and of Hades.^(M)