The Passover Lamb

12 The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, ² “This ^[a]month shall be the beginning of months to you; it is to be the first month of the year to you. ³ Tell all the congregation of Israel, ‘On the tenth [day] of this month they are to take a lamb or young goat for themselves, according to [the size of] the household of which he is the father, a lamb or young goat for each household. ⁴ Now if the household is too small for a lamb [to be consumed], let him and his next door neighbor take one according to the number of people [in the households]; according to what each man can eat, you are to divide the lamb. ⁵ Your lamb or young goat shall be [perfect] without blemish or bodily defect, a male a year old; you may take it from the sheep or from the goats.^{(A) 6} You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month, then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel is to slaughter it ^[b]at twilight. ⁷ Moreover, they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel [above the door] of the houses in which they eat it.^{(B) 8} They shall eat the meat that same night, roasted in fire, and they shall eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. ⁹ Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted in fire—both its head and its legs, along with its inner parts. ¹⁰ You shall let none of the meat remain until the morning, and anything that remains left over until morning, you shall burn completely in the fire. ¹¹ Now you are to eat it in this manner: [be prepared for a journey] with your ^[c]loins girded [that is, with the outer garment tucked into the band], your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; you shall eat it quickly—it is the Lord’s Passover. ¹² For I [the Lord] will pass through the land of Egypt on this night, and will strike down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and animal; against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments [exhibiting their worthlessness]. I am the Lord. ¹³ The blood shall be a sign for you on [the doorposts of] the houses where you live; when I see the blood I shall pass over you, and no affliction shall happen to you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.^(C)

Feast of Unleavened Bread

¹⁴ ‘Now this day will be a memorial to you, and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord; throughout your generations you are to celebrate it as an ordinance forever. ¹⁵ [In the celebration of the Passover in future years,] seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, but on the first day you shall remove the ^[d]leaven from your houses [because it represents the spread of sin]; for whoever eats leavened bread on the first day through the seventh day, that person shall be cut off and excluded from [the atonement made for] Israel. ¹⁶ On the first day [of the feast] you shall have a holy and solemn assembly, and on the seventh day there shall be another holy and solemn assembly; no work of any kind shall be done on those days, except for the preparation of food which every person must eat—only that may be done by you. ¹⁷ You shall also observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, because on this very day I brought your hosts [grouped according to tribal armies] out of the land of Egypt; therefore you shall observe this day throughout your generations as an ordinance forever. ¹⁸ In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread, [and continue] until the twenty-first day of the month at evening. ¹⁹ Seven days no leaven shall be found in your houses; whoever eats what is leavened shall be cut off and excluded from [the atonement made for] the congregation of Israel, whether a stranger or native-born.^{(D) 20} You shall eat nothing leavened; in all your dwellings you shall eat unleavened bread.’”

²¹ Then Moses called for all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Go and take a lamb for yourselves according to [the size of] your families and slaughter the Passover lamb. ²² You shall take a bunch of ^[e]hyssop, dip it in the blood which is in the basin, and touch some of the blood to the lintel [above the doorway] and to the two doorposts; and none of you shall go outside the door of his house until morning.

A Memorial of Redemption

²³ For the Lord will pass through to strike the Egyptians; and when He sees the blood on the lintel [above the entry way] and on the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over the door and will not allow ^[f]the destroyer to come into your houses to slay you. ²⁴ You shall observe this event [concerning Passover] as an ordinance for you and for your children forever. ²⁵ When you enter the land which the Lord will give you, as He has promised, you shall keep and observe this service. ²⁶ When your children say to you, ‘What does this service mean to you?’ ²⁷ you shall say, ‘It is the sacrifice of the Lord’s Passover, for He passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt when He struck the Egyptians, but spared our houses.’” And the people bowed [their heads] low and worshiped [God].

²⁸ Then the Israelites went and did [as they had been told]: just as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron, so they did.

²⁹ Now it happened at midnight that the Lord struck every firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the prisoner who was in the ^[g]dungeon, and all the firstborn of the cattle. ³⁰ Pharaoh got up in the night, he and all his servants and all the Egyptians, and there was a great cry [of heartache and sorrow] in Egypt, for there was no house where there was not someone dead. ³¹ Then he called for Moses and Aaron at night and said, “Get up, get out from among my people, both you and the Israelites; and go, serve the Lord, as you said. ³² Take both your flocks and your herds, as you have said, and go, and [ask your God to] bless me also.”