⁷ And those men said to him, “We are unclean through touching a dead body. Why are we kept from bringing the Lord's ^(A)offering at its appointed time among the people of Israel?”

⁷ Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. ⁸ Let us therefore celebrate the festival, ^(A)not with the old leaven, ^(B)the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

¹⁷ For there were many in the assembly who had not consecrated themselves. Therefore the Levites had to slaughter the Passover lamb for everyone who was not clean, to consecrate it to the Lord. ¹⁸ For a majority of the people, ^(A)many of them from Ephraim, Manasseh, Issachar, and Zebulun, had not cleansed themselves, yet they ate the Passover otherwise ^(B)than as prescribed. For Hezekiah had prayed for them, saying, “May the good Lord pardon everyone ^19 (C)who sets his heart to seek God, the Lord, the God of his fathers, even though not according to the sanctuary's rules of cleanness.”^[a]

² And you shall offer the Passover sacrifice to the Lord your God, from the flock or ^(A)the herd, ^(B)at the place that the Lord will choose, to make his name dwell there.

² “Let the people of Israel keep the Passover at its appointed time.

²⁷ you shall say, ^(A)‘It is the sacrifice of the Lord's Passover, for he passed over the houses of the people of Israel in Egypt, when he struck the Egyptians but spared our houses.’” And the people ^(B)bowed their heads and worshiped.