Exodus 12:1-23

Modern English Version

The Passover Instituted^(A)

12 Now the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying: ² This month shall be the beginning of months to you. It shall be the first month of the year to you. ³ Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying: On the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for a household. ⁴ And if the household be too little for the lamb, let him and his neighbor next to his house take it according to the number of the persons; according to what each man shall eat, divide the lamb. ⁵ Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year. You shall take it out from the sheep, or from the goats. ⁶ You shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month, and then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening. ⁷ They shall take some of the blood and put it on the two side posts and on the upper doorpost of the houses in which they shall eat it. ⁸ They shall eat the flesh on that night, roasted with fire, and they shall eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. ⁹ Do not eat it raw, nor boiled at all with water, but roasted with fire, its head with its legs and its entrails. ¹⁰ And you shall let nothing of it remain until the morning, but that of it which remains until the morning you shall burn with fire. ¹¹ In this way shall you eat it: with your waist girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. So you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord’s Passover.

¹² For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night and will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast, and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment. I am the Lord. ¹³ The blood shall be to you for a sign on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you when I smite the land of Egypt.

¹⁴ This day shall be a memorial to you, and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord. Throughout your generations you shall keep it a feast by an eternal ordinance. ¹⁵ Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall put away leaven out of your houses, for whoever eats leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel. ¹⁶ On the first day there shall be a holy convocation, and on the seventh day there shall be a holy convocation for you. No manner of work shall be done on them; but that which every man must eat—that only may be prepared for you.

¹⁷ You shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread. For on this very day I brought your 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 until the twenty-first day of the month at evening. ¹⁹ Seven days shall there be no leaven found in your houses, for whoever eats that which is leavened, that person shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he be a stranger or born in the land. 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, “Draw out and take for yourselves a lamb according to your families and kill the Passover lamb. ²² You shall take a bunch of hyssop, and dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and apply the lintel and the two side posts with the blood that is in the basin, and none of you shall go out from the door of his house until the morning. ²³ For the Lord will pass through to kill the Egyptians. And when He sees the blood upon the lintel and on the two side posts, the Lord will pass over the door and will not permit the destroyer to come to your houses to kill you.