²¹ “In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, you shall celebrate the Festival of the Passover, and for seven days unleavened bread shall be eaten.^(A)

⁵ In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, at twilight,^[a] there shall be a Passover offering to the Lord,^{(A) 6} and on the fifteenth day of the same month is the Festival of Unleavened Bread to the Lord; seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. ⁷ On the first day you shall have a holy convocation; you shall not work at your occupations.^{(B) 8} For seven days you shall present the Lord’s offerings by fire;^[b] on the seventh day there shall be a holy convocation: you shall not work at your occupations.”

⁷ Clean out the old yeast so that you may be a new batch of dough, as you really are unleavened. For our paschal lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed.^{(A) 8} Therefore, let us celebrate the festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.^(B)

The Passover Reviewed

16 “Observe the month^[a] of Abib by keeping the Passover to the Lord your God, for in the month of Abib the Lord your God brought you out of Egypt by night.^{(A) 2} You shall offer the Passover sacrifice to the Lord your God from the flock and the herd, at the place that the Lord will choose as a dwelling for his name.^{(B) 3} You must not eat with it anything leavened. For seven days you shall eat unleavened bread with it—the bread of affliction—because you came out of the land of Egypt in great haste, so that all the days of your life you may remember the day of your departure from the land of Egypt.^{(C) 4} No leaven shall be seen with you in all your territory for seven days, and none of the meat of what you slaughter on the evening of the first day shall remain until morning.^{(D) 5} You are not permitted to offer the Passover sacrifice within any of your towns that the Lord your God is giving you. ⁶ But at the place that the Lord your God will choose as a dwelling for his name, only there shall you offer the Passover sacrifice, in the evening at sunset, the time of day when you departed from Egypt.^{(E) 7} You shall cook it and eat it at the place that the Lord your God will choose; the next morning you may go back to your tents.^{(F) 8} For six days you shall continue to eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day there shall be a solemn assembly for the Lord your God, when you shall do no work.^(G)

Offerings at Passover

¹⁶ “On the fourteenth day of the first month there shall be a Passover offering to the Lord.^{(A) 17} And on the fifteenth day of this month is a festival; seven days shall unleavened bread be eaten.^{(B) 18} On the first day there shall be a holy convocation. You shall not work at your occupations.^{(C) 19} You shall offer an offering by fire,^[a] a burnt offering to the Lord: two young bulls, one ram, and seven male lambs a year old; see that they are without blemish. ²⁰ Their grain offering shall be of choice flour mixed with oil: three-tenths of an ephah shall you offer for a bull and two-tenths for a ram; ²¹ one-tenth shall you offer for each of the seven lambs; ²² also one male goat for a purification offering, to make atonement for you. ²³ You shall offer these in addition to the burnt offering of the morning, which belongs to the regular burnt offering.^{(D) 24} In the same way you shall offer daily, for seven days, the food of an offering by fire,^[b] a pleasing odor to the Lord; it shall be offered in addition to the regular burnt offering and its drink offering. ²⁵ And on the seventh day you shall have a holy convocation; you shall not work at your occupations.^(E)

² “Let the Israelites keep the Passover at its appointed time.^{(A) 3} On the fourteenth day of this month, at twilight,^[a] you shall keep it at its appointed time; according to all its statutes and all its regulations you shall keep it.” ⁴ So Moses told the Israelites that they should keep the Passover. ⁵ They kept the Passover in the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, at twilight,^[b] in the wilderness of Sinai. Just as the Lord had commanded Moses, so the Israelites did.^{(B) 6} Now there were certain people who were unclean through touching a corpse, so that they could not keep the Passover on that day. They came before Moses and Aaron on that day^{(C) 7} and said to him, “Although we are unclean through touching a corpse, why must we be kept from presenting the Lord’s offering at its appointed time among the Israelites?” ⁸ Moses said to them, “Wait, so that I may hear what the Lord will command concerning you.”^(D)

⁹ The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ¹⁰ “Speak to the Israelites, saying: Anyone of you or your descendants who is unclean through touching a corpse or is away on a journey shall still keep the Passover to the Lord. ¹¹ In the second month on the fourteenth day, at twilight,^[c] they shall keep it; they shall eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.^{(E) 12} They shall leave none of it until morning nor break a bone of it; according to all the statute for the Passover they shall keep it.^{(F) 13} But anyone who is clean and is not on a journey and yet refrains from keeping the Passover shall be cut off from the people for not presenting the Lord’s offering at its appointed time; such a one shall bear the consequences for the sin.^{(G) 14} Any alien residing among you who wishes to keep the Passover to the Lord shall do so according to the statute of the Passover and according to its regulation; you shall have one statute for both the resident alien and the native of the land.”^(H)

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) 15} Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread; on the first day you shall remove leaven from your houses, for whoever eats leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day shall be cut off from Israel.^{(I) 16} On the first day you shall hold a solemn assembly and on the seventh day a solemn assembly; no work shall be done on those days; only what everyone must eat, that alone may be prepared by you.^{(J) 17} You shall observe the Festival of Unleavened Bread, for on this very day I brought your companies out of the land of Egypt: you shall observe this day throughout your generations as a perpetual ordinance.^{(K) 18} In the first month, from the evening of the fourteenth day until the evening of the twenty-first day, you shall eat unleavened bread.^{(L) 19} For seven days no leaven shall be found in your houses, for whoever eats what is leavened shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether an alien or a native of the land.^{(M) 20} You shall eat nothing leavened; in all your settlements you shall eat unleavened bread.”

²¹ Then Moses called all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Go, select lambs for your families, and slaughter the Passover lamb.^{(N) 22} Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and touch the lintel and the two doorposts with the blood in the basin. None of you shall go outside the door of your house until morning.^{(O) 23} For the Lord will pass through to strike down the Egyptians; when he sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over that door and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you down.^{(P) 24} You shall observe this as a perpetual ordinance for you and your children.^{(Q) 25} When you come to the land that the Lord will give you, as he has promised, you shall keep this observance. ²⁶ And when your children ask you, ‘What does this observance mean to you?’^{(R) 27} you shall say, ‘It is the Passover sacrifice to the Lord, for he passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt when he struck down the Egyptians but spared our houses.’ ” And the people bowed down and worshiped.^(S)

²⁸ The Israelites went and did just as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron; so they did.

The Tenth Plague: Death of the Firstborn

²⁹ At midnight the Lord struck down all the 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 dungeon and all the firstborn of the livestock.^{(T) 30} Pharaoh arose in the night, he and all his officials and all the Egyptians, and there was a loud cry in Egypt, for there was not a house without someone dead.^{(U) 31} Then he summoned Moses and Aaron in the night and said, “Rise up, go away from my people, both you and the Israelites! Go, serve the Lord, as you said.^{(V) 32} Take your flocks and your herds, as you said, and be gone. And ask a blessing for me, too!”^(W)

The Exodus: From Rameses to Succoth

³³ The Egyptians urged the people to hasten their departure from the land, for they said, “We shall all be dead.”^{(X) 34} So the people took their dough before it was leavened, with their kneading bowls wrapped up in their cloaks on their shoulders. ³⁵ The Israelites had acted according to the word of Moses; they had asked the Egyptians for jewelry of silver and gold and for clothing,^{(Y) 36} and the Lord had given the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they let them have what they asked. And so they plundered the Egyptians.^(Z)

³⁷ The Israelites journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides little ones.^{(AA) 38} A mixed crowd also went up with them and livestock in great numbers, both flocks and herds.^{(AB) 39} They baked unleavened cakes of the dough that they had brought out of Egypt; it was not leavened, because they were driven out of Egypt and could not wait, nor had they prepared any provisions for themselves.^(AC)

⁴⁰ The time that the Israelites had lived in Egypt was four hundred thirty years.^{(AD) 41} At the end of four hundred thirty years, on that very day, all the companies of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt.^{(AE) 42} That was for the Lord a night of vigil, to bring them out of the land of Egypt. That same night is a vigil to be kept for the Lord by all the Israelites throughout their generations.^(AF)

Directions for the Passover

⁴³ The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “This is the ordinance for the Passover: no foreigner shall eat of it, ⁴⁴ but any slave who has been purchased may eat of it after he has been circumcised; ⁴⁵ no bound or hired servant may eat of it. ⁴⁶ It shall be eaten in one house; you shall not take any of the animal outside the house, and you shall not break any of its bones.^{(AG) 47} The whole congregation of Israel shall do this.^{(AH) 48} If an alien who resides with you wants to celebrate the Passover to the Lord, all his males shall be circumcised; then he may draw near to celebrate it; he shall be regarded as a native of the land. But no uncircumcised person shall eat of it; ⁴⁹ there shall be one law for the native-born and for the alien who resides among you.”^(AI)

⁵⁰ All the Israelites did just as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron. ⁵¹ That very day the Lord brought the Israelites out of the land of Egypt, company by company.^(AJ)