¹⁰ Now Moses and Aaron did all these amazing acts in front of Pharaoh, but the Lord made Pharaoh stubborn so that he didn’t let the Israelites go from his land.

First Passover

12 The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, ² “This month will be the first month; it will be the first month of the year for you.^{[a] 3} Tell the whole Israelite community: On the tenth day of this month they must take a lamb for each household, a lamb per house. ⁴ If a household is too small for a lamb, it should share one with a neighbor nearby. You should divide the lamb in proportion to the number of people who will be eating it. ⁵ Your lamb should be a flawless year-old male. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats. ⁶ You should keep close watch over it until the fourteenth day of this month. At twilight on that day, the whole assembled Israelite community should slaughter their lambs. ⁷ They should take some of the blood and smear it on the two doorposts and on the beam over the door of the houses in which they are eating. ⁸ That same night they should eat the meat roasted over the fire. They should eat it along with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. ⁹ Don’t eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted over fire with its head, legs, and internal organs. ¹⁰ Don’t let any of it remain until morning, and burn any of it left over in the morning. ¹¹ This is how you should eat it. You should be dressed, with your sandals on your feet and your walking stick in your hand. You should eat the meal in a hurry. It is the Passover of the Lord. ¹² I’ll pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I’ll strike down every oldest child in the land of Egypt, both humans and animals. I’ll impose judgments on all the gods of Egypt. I am the Lord. ¹³ The blood will be your sign on the houses where you live. Whenever I see the blood, I’ll pass over^[b] you. No plague will destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.

¹⁴ “This day will be a day of remembering for you. You will observe it as a festival to the Lord. You will observe it in every generation as a regulation for all time.

Working on the Sabbath

12 At that time Jesus went through the wheat fields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry so they were picking heads of wheat and eating them. ² When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, “Look, your disciples are breaking the Sabbath law.”

³ But he said to them, “Haven’t you read what David did when he and those with him were hungry? ⁴ He went into God’s house and broke the law by eating the bread of the presence, which only the priests were allowed to eat. ⁵ Or haven’t you read in the Law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple treat the Sabbath as any other day and are still innocent? ⁶ But I tell you that something greater than the temple is here. ⁷ If you had known what this means, I want mercy and not sacrifice,^[a] you wouldn’t have condemned the innocent. ⁸ The Human One^[b] is Lord of the Sabbath.”