The Oppression. ^8 (A)Then a new king, who knew nothing of Joseph,^[a] rose to power in Egypt. ⁹ He said to his people, “See! The Israelite people have multiplied and become more numerous than we are! ¹⁰ Come, let us deal shrewdly with them to stop their increase;^[b] otherwise, in time of war they too may join our enemies to fight against us, and so leave the land.”

¹¹ Accordingly, they set supervisors over the Israelites to oppress them with forced labor.^(B) Thus they had to build for Pharaoh^[c] the garrison cities of Pithom and Raamses. ¹² Yet the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread, so that the Egyptians began to loathe the Israelites. ¹³ So the Egyptians reduced the Israelites to cruel slavery, ¹⁴ making life bitter for them with hard labor, at mortar^[d] and brick and all kinds of field work—cruelly oppressed in all their labor.

The Call and Commission of Moses. ⁷ But the Lord said: I have witnessed the affliction of my people in Egypt and have heard their cry against their taskmasters, so I know well what they are suffering. ⁸ Therefore I have come down^[a] to rescue them from the power of the Egyptians and lead them up from that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey, the country of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Girgashites, the Hivites and the Jebusites.^{(A) 9} Now indeed the outcry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen how the Egyptians are oppressing them. ¹⁰ Now, go! I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.

Promulgation of the Passover. ²¹ Moses summoned all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Go and procure lambs for your families, and slaughter the Passover victims. ^22 (A)Then take a bunch of hyssop,^[a] and dipping it in the blood that is in the basin, apply some of this blood to the lintel and the two doorposts. And none of you shall go outdoors until morning. ²³ For when the Lord goes by to strike down the Egyptians, seeing the blood on the lintel and the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over that door and not let the destroyer come into your houses to strike you down.

²⁴ “You will keep this practice forever as a statute for yourselves and your descendants. ²⁵ Thus, when you have entered the land which the Lord will give you as he promised, you must observe this rite. ^26 (B)When your children ask you, ‘What does this rite of yours mean?’ ²⁷ you will reply, ‘It is the Passover sacrifice for the Lord, who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt; when he struck down the Egyptians, he delivered our houses.’”

Then the people knelt and bowed down, ²⁸ and the Israelites went and did exactly as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron.

Death of the Firstborn. ^29 (C)And so at midnight the Lord struck down every firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh sitting on his throne to the firstborn of the prisoner in the dungeon, as well as all the firstborn of the animals. ³⁰ Pharaoh arose in the night, he and all his servants and all the Egyptians; and there was loud wailing throughout Egypt, for there was not a house without its dead.

Permission to Depart. ³¹ During the night Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said, “Leave my people at once, you and the Israelites! Go and serve the Lord as you said. ³² Take your flocks, too, and your herds, as you said, and go; and bless me, too!”^[b]

³³ The Egyptians, in a hurry to send them away from the land, urged the people on, for they said, “All of us will die!”