Exodus 12

Yahweh spoke to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying,

“This month will be the beginning of months for you. It will be the first month of the year for you.

Speak to all the congregation of Israel and say on the tenth day of this month every man among them must take a lamb according to their fathers’ houses, a lamb for a household.

And if the household is too little for a lamb, then he and his neighbor next to his house are to take one according to the number of the souls; according to what everyone can eat you are to make your count for the lamb.

Your lamb must be without blemish, a male a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats,

and you are to keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month, and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel will kill it at evening.

“They must take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel on the houses in which they will eat it.

They are to eat the flesh in that night, roasted with fire; and unleavened bread. They are to eat it with bitter herbs.

Do not eat it raw or boiled at all with water, but roasted with fire, with its head, its legs and its inner parts.

You must let nothing of it remain until the morning; but what remains of it until the morning you must burn with fire.

This is how you must eat it: with your belt on your waist, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. And you are to eat it in haste. It is Yahweh’s Passover.

For I will go through the land of Egypt in that night, and will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and animal; against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am Yahweh.

The blood will be to you for a token on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood I will pass over you and there will no plague be on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.

“This day will be for a memorial to you, and you are to keep it as a feast to Yahweh throughout your generations; you are to keep it as a feast by an ordinance forever.

Seven days you must eat unleavened bread. Even the first day you must put away yeast out of your houses, for whoever eats leavened bread, from the first day until the seventh day, that soul must be cut off from Israel.

On the first day there will be to you a holy assembly, and in the seventh day a holy assembly. No kind of work is to be done in them. Except what every man must eat, that only may be done by you.

You are to observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for in this same day I brought your armies out of the land of Egypt. Therefore you must observe this day throughout your generations as an ordinance forever.

In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you are to eat unleavened bread until the twenty-first day of the month at evening.

There must be no yeast found in your houses for seven days. For whoever eats what is leavened, that soul must be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he be a foreigner or one who is born in the land.

You will eat nothing leavened; in all your habitations you must eat unleavened bread.”

Then Moses called for all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Draw out and take lambs according to your families, and kill the Passover.

You are to take a bunch of hyssop and dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and strike the lintel and the two doorposts with the blood that is in the basin. And none of you is to go out of the door of his house until the morning.

For Yahweh will pass through to strike the Egyptians, and when he sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, Yahweh will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to come in to your houses to strike you.

You are to observe this thing for an ordinance to you and to your sons forever.

It will happen, when you have come to the land that Yahweh will give you according as he has promised, that you are to keep this service.

It will happen when your children ask you, ‘What do you mean by this service?’

that you are to say, ‘It is the sacrifice of Yahweh’s Passover, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, when he struck the Egyptians and spared our houses.’” The people kneeled and bowed down in worship.

The children of Israel went and did so; as Yahweh had commanded Moses and Aaron, so they did.

And it came to pass at midnight that Yahweh struck all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of livestock.

Pharaoh rose up in the night, he and all his servants and all the Egyptians. And there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where there was not one dead.

He called for Moses and Aaron by night and said, “Rise up, get out from among my people, both you and the children of Israel; and go, serve Yahweh, as you have said!

Take both your flocks and your herds, as you have said, and be gone, and bless me also!”

The Egyptians were urgent with the people to send them out of the land in haste. For they said, “We are all dead men.”

The people took their dough before it was leavened, their kneading troughs being bound up in their clothes on their shoulders.

The children of Israel did according to the word of Moses, and they asked of the Egyptians jewels of silver and jewels of gold and clothing.

Yahweh gave the people favor in the eyes of the Egyptians so that they let them have what they asked. Thus they took away the wealth of the Egyptians.

The children of Israel traveled from Rameses to Sukkoth, about 600,000 on foot who were men, besides children.

A mixed multitude went up also with them, with flocks, herds, and even very much livestock.

They baked unleavened cakes of the dough that they brought out of Egypt, for it wasn’t leavened, because they were thrust out of Egypt and could not wait, neither had they prepared for themselves any food.

Now the time of the sojourn of the children of Israel (who lived in Egypt) was 430 years.

It came to pass at the end of 430 years, even the same day it came to pass, that all the armies of Yahweh went out from the land of Egypt.

It is a night to be much observed to Yahweh, for bringing them out from the land of Egypt; this is that night of Yahweh, to be much observed of all the children of Israel throughout their generations.

Yahweh said to Moses and Aaron, “This is the ordinance of the Passover: no foreigner is to eat of it,

but every man’s slave who is bought for money, when you have circumcised him, then he may eat of it.

A sojourner and a hired servant must not eat of it.

It is to be eaten in one house. You are not to take any of the meat out of the house, and you are not to break any of its bones.

All the congregation of Israel must keep it.

When a foreigner resides with you and wants to keep the Passover to Yahweh, all his males must be circumcised. And then he may come near and keep it, and he will be like one who is born in the land. But no uncircumcised person is to eat of it.

There is to be one law that is to apply to him who is born at home and to the foreigner who lives among you.”

All the children of Israel did as Yahweh commanded Moses and Aaron. That is what they did.

It came to pass the same day that Yahweh brought the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt by their armies.