The Passover Celebrated

¹⁹ On the fourteenth day of the first month the returned exiles kept the Passover.^(A)

The Great Passover

30 Hezekiah sent word to all Israel and Judah and wrote letters also to Ephraim and Manasseh, that they should come to the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, to keep the Passover to the Lord the God of Israel. ² For the king and his officials and all the assembly in Jerusalem had taken counsel to keep the Passover in the second month^{(A) 3} (for they could not keep it at its proper time because the priests had not sanctified themselves in sufficient number, nor had the people assembled in Jerusalem).^{(B) 4} The plan seemed right to the king and all the assembly. ⁵ So they decreed to make a proclamation throughout all Israel, from Beer-sheba to Dan, that the people should come and keep the Passover to the Lord the God of Israel, at Jerusalem, for they had not kept it in great numbers as prescribed.^{(C) 6} So couriers went throughout all Israel and Judah with letters from the king and his officials, as the king had commanded, saying, “O people of Israel, return to the Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, so that he may turn again to the remnant of you who have escaped from the hand of the kings of Assyria.^{(D) 7} Do not be like your ancestors and your kindred, who were faithless to the Lord God of their ancestors, so that he made them a desolation, as you see.^{(E) 8} Do not now be stiff-necked as your ancestors were, but yield yourselves to the Lord and come to his sanctuary, which he has sanctified forever, and serve the Lord your God, so that his fierce anger may turn away from you.^{(F) 9} For as you return to the Lord, your kindred and your children will find compassion with their captors and return to this land. For the Lord your God is gracious and merciful and will not turn away his face from you, if you return to him.”^(G)

¹⁰ So the couriers went from city to city through the country of Ephraim and Manasseh, and as far as Zebulun, but they laughed them to scorn and mocked them.^{(H) 11} Only a few from Asher, Manasseh, and Zebulun humbled themselves and came to Jerusalem.^{(I) 12} The hand of God was also on Judah to give them one heart to do what the king and the officials commanded by the word of the Lord.

¹³ Many people came together in Jerusalem to keep the Festival of Unleavened Bread in the second month, a very large assembly.^{(J) 14} They set to work and removed the altars that were in Jerusalem, and all the altars for offering incense they took away and threw into the Wadi Kidron.^{(K) 15} They slaughtered the Passover lamb on the fourteenth day of the second month. The priests and the Levites were ashamed, and they sanctified themselves and brought burnt offerings into the house of the Lord.^{(L) 16} They took their accustomed posts according to the law of Moses the man of God; the priests dashed the blood that they received^[a] from the hands of the Levites.^{(M) 17} For there were many in the assembly who had not sanctified themselves; therefore the Levites had to slaughter the Passover lamb for everyone who was not clean, to make it holy to the Lord.^{(N) 18} For a multitude of the people, many of them from Ephraim, Manasseh, Issachar, and Zebulun, had not cleansed themselves, yet they ate the Passover contrary to what was prescribed. But Hezekiah prayed for them, saying, “May the good Lord pardon all^{(O) 19} who set their hearts to seek God, the Lord the God of their ancestors, even though not in accordance with the sanctuary’s rules of cleanness.”^{(P) 20} The Lord heard Hezekiah and healed the people. ²¹ The people of Israel who were present at Jerusalem kept the Festival of Unleavened Bread seven days with great gladness, and the Levites and the priests praised the Lord day by day, accompanied by loud instruments for the Lord.^{(Q) 22} Hezekiah spoke encouragingly to all the Levites who showed good skill in the service of the Lord. So the people ate the food of the festival for seven days, sacrificing offerings of well-being and giving thanks to the Lord the God of their ancestors.^(R)

²³ Then the whole assembly agreed together to keep the festival for another seven days, so they kept it for another seven days with gladness.^{(S) 24} For King Hezekiah of Judah gave the assembly a thousand bulls and seven thousand sheep for offerings, and the officials gave the assembly a thousand bulls and ten thousand sheep. The priests sanctified themselves in great numbers.^{(T) 25} The whole assembly of Judah, the priests and the Levites, and the whole assembly that came out of Israel, and the resident aliens who came out of the land of Israel, and the resident aliens who lived in Judah rejoiced. ²⁶ There was great joy in Jerusalem, for since the time of Solomon son of King David of Israel there had been nothing like this in Jerusalem. ²⁷ Then the priests and the Levites stood up and blessed the people, and their voice was heard; their prayer came to his holy dwelling in heaven.^(U)

The Passover at Gilgal

¹⁰ While the Israelites were camped in Gilgal, they kept the Passover in the evening on the fourteenth day of the month in the plains of Jericho.^(A)

⁶ You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month; then the whole assembled congregation of Israel shall slaughter it at twilight.^{(A) 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.^{(B) 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.^{(C) 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.^{(D) 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.^{(E) 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.^{(F) 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.^{(G) 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.^{(H) 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.^{(I) 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.^{(J) 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.^{(K) 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.^{(L) 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.^{(M) 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.^{(N) 24} You shall observe this as a perpetual ordinance for you and your children.^{(O) 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?’^{(P) 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.^(Q)

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.^{(R) 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.^{(S) 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.^{(T) 32} Take your flocks and your herds, as you said, and be gone. And ask a blessing for me, too!”^(U)

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.”^{(V) 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,^{(W) 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.^(X)