The Passover
1 The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, 2 f“This month shall be for you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year for you. 3 Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb gaccording to their fathers’ houses, a lamb for a household. 4 And if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his nearest neighbor shall take according to the number of persons; according to what each can eat you shall make your count for the lamb. 5 Your lamb shall be hwithout blemish, a male a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats, 6 and you shall keep it until the ifourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight.1
7 “Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the jtwo doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. 8 They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire; with kunleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it. 9 Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but lroasted, its head with its legs and its inner parts. 10 And myou shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. 11 In this manner you shall eat it: with nyour belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. And you shall eat it in haste. oIt is the Lord’s Passover. 12 For pI will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on qall the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: rI am the Lord. 13 sThe blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.
14 “This day shall be tfor you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord; throughout your generations, as a ustatute forever, you shall keep it as a feast. 15 vSeven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven out of your houses, for if anyone eats what is leavened, from the first day until the seventh day, wthat person shall be cut off from Israel. 16 On the first day you shall hold a xholy assembly, and on the seventh day a holy assembly. No work shall be done on those days. But what everyone needs to eat, that alone may be prepared by you. 17 And you shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for yon this very day I brought your zhosts out of the land of Egypt. Therefore you shall observe this day, throughout your generations, as a statute forever. 18 aIn the first month, from the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread until the twenty-first day of the month at evening. 19 bFor seven days no leaven is to be found in your houses. If anyone eats what is leavened, bthat person will be cut off from the congregation of Israel, cwhether he is a sojourner or a native of the land. 20 You shall eat nothing leavened; in all your dwelling places you shall eat unleavened bread.”
21 Then Moses called all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Go and select lambs for yourselves daccording to your clans, and kill the Passover lamb. 22 Take a bunch of ehyssop and fdip it in the blood that is in the basin, and touch gthe lintel and the two doorposts with the blood that is in the basin. hNone of you shall go out of the door of his house until the morning. 23 iFor the Lord will pass through to strike the Egyptians, and when he sees the blood on gthe lintel and on the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over the door and jwill not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you. 24 You shall observe this rite as a statute for you and for your sons forever. 25 And when you come to the land that the Lord will give you, kas he has promised, you shall keep this service. 26 And lwhen your children say to you, ‘What do you mean by this service?’ 27 you shall say, m‘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 nbowed their heads and worshiped.
28 Then the people of Israel went and did so; as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron, so they did.
The Tenth Plague: Death of the Firstborn
29 oAt midnight the pLord struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, qfrom 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 the livestock. 30 And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he and all his servants and all the Egyptians. And there was ra great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where someone was not dead. 31 Then he summoned Moses and Aaron by night and said, “Up, go out from among my people, sboth you and the people of Israel; and go, serve the Lord, as you have said. 32 tTake your flocks and your herds, as you have said, and be gone, and bless me also!”
The Exodus
33 uThe Egyptians were urgent with the people to send them out of the land in haste. For they said, “We shall all be dead.” 34 So the people took their dough before it was leavened, their kneading bowls being bound up in their cloaks on their shoulders. 35 The people of Israel had also done as Moses told them, for they had vasked the Egyptians for silver and gold jewelry and for clothing. 36 wAnd the Lord had given the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, so that xthey let them have what they asked. Thus they plundered the Egyptians.
37 And the ypeople of Israel journeyed from zRameses to Succoth, aabout six hundred thousand men on foot, besides women and children. 38 A bmixed multitude also went up with them, and very much livestock, both flocks and herds. 39 And they baked unleavened cakes of the dough that they had brought out of Egypt, for it was not leavened, because uthey were thrust out of Egypt and ccould not wait, nor had they prepared any provisions for themselves.
40 The time that the people of Israel lived in Egypt was 430 years. 41 At the end of d430 years, on that very day, all the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt. 42 It was a night of watching by the Lord, to bring them out of the land of Egypt; so this same night is a enight of watching kept to the Lord by all the people of Israel throughout their generations.
Institution of the Passover
43 And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “This is the statute of the Passover: no foreigner shall eat of it, 44 but every slave2 that is fbought for money may eat of it after you have circumcised him. 45 gNo foreigner or hired worker may eat of it. 46 It shall be eaten in one house; you shall not take any of the flesh outside the house, and hyou shall not break any of its bones. 47 iAll the congregation of Israel shall keep it. 48 jIf a stranger shall sojourn with you and would keep the Passover to the Lord, let all his males be circumcised. Then he may come near and keep it; he kshall be as a native of the land. But no uncircumcised person shall eat of it. 49 There shall be lone law for the native and for the jstranger who sojourns among you.”
50 All the people of Israel did just as the Lord commanded Moses and Aaron. 51 And on that very day the mLord brought the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt by their nhosts.
1 d“You shall not spread a false report. You shall not join hands with a wicked man to be a emalicious witness. 2 You shall not fall in with the many to do evil, nor shall you bear witness in a lawsuit, siding with the many, so as to pervert justice, 3 fnor shall you be partial to a poor man in his lawsuit.
4 g“If you meet your enemy’s ox or his donkey going astray, you shall bring it back to him. 5 If you see the donkey of one who hates you lying down under its burden, you shall refrain from leaving him with it; you shall rescue it with him.
6 h“You shall not pervert the justice due to your poor in his lawsuit. 7 dKeep far from a false charge, and ido not kill the innocent and righteous, for jI will not acquit the wicked. 8 kAnd you shall take no bribe, for a bribe blinds the clear-sighted and subverts the cause of those who are in the right.
9 l“You shall not oppress a sojourner. You know the heart of a sojourner, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.
Laws About the Sabbath and Festivals
10 m“For six years you shall sow your land and gather in its yield, 11 but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, that the poor of your people may eat; and what they leave the beasts of the field may eat. You shall do likewise with your vineyard, and with your olive orchard.
12 n“Six days you shall do your work, but on the seventh day you shall rest; that your ox and your donkey may have rest, and the son of your servant woman, and the alien, may be refreshed.
13 o“Pay attention to all that I have said to you, and make no mention of the names of other gods, nor let it be heard on your lips.
14 p“Three times in the year you shall keep a feast to me. 15 qYou shall keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread. As I commanded you, you shall eat unleavened bread for seven days at the appointed time in the month of rAbib, for in it you came out of Egypt. sNone shall appear before me empty-handed. 16 You shall keep tthe Feast of Harvest, of the firstfruits of your labor, of what you sow in the field. You shall keep the uFeast of Ingathering at the end of the year, when you gather in from the field the fruit of your labor. 17 pThree times in the year shall all your males appear before the Lord God.
18 v“You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with anything leavened, or let the fat of my feast remain until the morning.
19 “The best of the wfirstfruits of your ground you shall bring into the house of the Lord your God.
x“You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.
Conquest of Canaan Promised
20 y“Behold, I send an angel before you to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place that I have prepared. 21 Pay careful attention to him and obey his voice; zdo not rebel against him, afor he will not pardon your transgression, for my name is in him.
22 “But if you carefully obey his voice and do all that I say, then bI will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries.
23 y“When my angel goes before you and brings you cto the Amorites and the Hittites and the Perizzites and the Canaanites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, and I blot them out, 24 you shall dnot bow down to their gods nor serve them, enor do as they do, but fyou shall utterly overthrow them and break their gpillars in pieces. 25 You hshall serve the Lord your God, and ihe1 will bless your bread and your water, and jI will take sickness away from among you. 26 kNone shall miscarry or be barren in your land; I will fulfill the lnumber of your days. 27 I will send mmy terror before you and will throw into nconfusion all the people against whom you shall come, and I will make all your enemies turn their backs to you. 28 And oI will send hornets2 before you, which shall drive out the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the Hittites from before you. 29 pI will not drive them out from before you in one year, lest the land become desolate and the wild beasts multiply against you. 30 Little by little I will drive them out from before you, until you have increased and possess the land. 31 qAnd I will set your border from the Red Sea to the Sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness to the Euphrates,3 for rI will give the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and you shall drive them out before you. 32 sYou shall make no covenant with them and their gods. 33 They shall not dwell in your land, lest they make you sin against me; for if you serve their gods, tit will surely be a snare to you.”
