Exodus 12:3-14
12:3 Tell the whole community of Israel, ‘In the tenth day of this month they each
must take a lamb
for themselves according to their families
– a lamb for each household.
12:4 If any household is too small
for a lamb,
the man
and his next-door neighbor
are to take
a lamb according to the number of people – you will make your count for the lamb according to how much each one can eat.
12:5 Your lamb must be
perfect,
a male, one year old;
you may take
it from the sheep or from the goats.
12:6 You must care for it
until the fourteenth day of this month, and then the whole community
of Israel will kill it around sundown.
12:7 They will take some of the blood and put it on the two side posts and top of the doorframe of the houses where they will eat it.
12:8 They will eat the meat the same night;
they will eat it roasted over the fire with bread made without yeast
and with bitter herbs.
12:9 Do not eat it raw
or boiled in water, but roast it over the fire with its head, its legs, and its entrails.
12:10 You must leave nothing until morning, but you must burn with fire whatever remains of it until morning.
12:11 This is how you are to eat it – dressed to travel,
your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. You are to eat it in haste. It is the
Lord’s Passover.
12:12 I will pass through the land of Egypt in the same night, and I will attack all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both of humans and of animals, and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment. I am the Lord.
12:13 The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are, so that when I see the blood I will pass over you, and this plague will not fall on you to destroy you when I attack the land of Egypt.
12:14 This day will become a memorial for you, and you will celebrate it as a festival to the Lord – you will celebrate it perpetually as a lasting ordinance.
Exodus 12:21-30
12:21 Then Moses summoned all the elders of Israel, and told them, “Go and select for yourselves a lamb or young goat for your families, and kill the Passover animals.
12:22 Take a branch of hyssop, dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and apply to the top of the doorframe and the two side posts some of the blood that is in the basin. Not one of you is to go out the door of his house until morning.
12:23 For the Lord will pass through to strike Egypt, and when he sees the blood on the top of the doorframe and the two side posts, then the Lord will pass over the door, and he will not permit the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you.
12:24 You must observe this event as an ordinance for you and for your children forever.
12:25 When you enter the land that the Lord will give to you, just as he said, you must observe this ceremony.
12:26 When your children ask you, ‘What does this ceremony mean to you?’ –
12:27 then you will say, ‘It is the sacrifice of the Lord’s Passover, when he passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt, when he struck Egypt and delivered our households.’” The people bowed down low to the ground,
12:28 and the Israelites went away and did exactly as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron.
The Deliverance from Egypt
12:29 It happened at midnight – the Lord attacked 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 prison, and all the firstborn of the cattle.
12:30 Pharaoh got up in the night, along with all his servants and all Egypt, and there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was no house in which there was not someone dead.