The Passover Is Celebrated

¹⁹ The ·Jews who returned from captivity [^Lsons/people of the exile] ·celebrated [observed] the Passover on the fourteenth day of the first month [^CApril 21; Ex. 12:1–30, 43–51; Lev. 23:4–8; Num. 28:16–25; Deut. 16:1–18]. ²⁰ The priests and Levites had ·made themselves clean [purified themselves]. Then the Levites ·killed [slaughtered; sacrified] the Passover lambs for all the ·people who had returned from captivity [exiles], for their ·relatives the [or fellow; ^Lbrothers the] priests, and for themselves. ²¹ So all the ·people [sons] of Israel who returned from ·captivity [exile] ·ate the Passover lamb [^Late]. So did the people who had ·given up the unclean ways of their non-Jewish neighbors [separated themselves from the impurity/pollution of the nations] in order to ·worship [seek] the Lord, the God of Israel. ²² For seven days they celebrated with joy the Feast of Unleavened Bread [Ex. 12:17–20; 34:18]. The Lord had made them ·happy [rejoice] by ·changing the mind [turning the heart] of the king of Assyria [^Ca deliberate anachronism, since Assyria had fallen earlier in 612 bc] so that he helped them in the work on the ·Temple [^Lhouse] of the God of Israel.