12
Yahweh instructed Moses and Aaron about the Passover Festival
1 Yahweh said to Aaron and Moses/me there in Egypt,
2 “From now on, this month will be the first month of the year for you.
3 Tell all the Israeli people that in each family, the man who heads the family must select a lamb or a young goat for his household.
4 If there are not enough people in his family to eat a whole cooked lamb, then his family and the family that lives next door may share one animal. Decide how many lambs you need according to the number of people in each family, and according to how much each person can eat.
5 The lambs or goats that you choose must be males, one-year-old, and they must not have any defects.
6 You must take special care of these animals until the 14th day of the month. On that day, all the Israeli people must slaughter the lambs or goats in the evening.
7 Then they must take some of the blood from the lambs or goats, and they must smear it on the doorposts and the ◄lintels/horizontal beams above the doorways► of the houses in which they will eat the meat.
8 They must roast the animals immediately and eat the meat that night. They must eat it with bread that is baked without yeast and with bitter herbs.
9 You must not eat any of the meat raw, and you must not boil the meat. You must roast it whole, without cutting off the head or the legs or removing the internal parts.
10 You must eat all the meat that evening; do not let any of the meat remain to be eaten the next morning. If any of the meat is left until the next morning, you must completely burn it.
11 When you eat it, you must be dressed ready to travel, and you must eat it quickly. You must have your sandals on your feet and your walking stick in your hands. It will be a festival called Passover to honor me, Yahweh.
12 On that night I will go through all the country of Egypt, and I will kill all the oldest males in Egypt, both humans and animals. By doing this I will show that all the gods in Egypt are worthless. I can do this, because I am Yahweh, the all-powerful God.
13 The blood that you smear on the doorways will be a mark to indicate the houses in which you Israelis live. When I see the blood, I will ignore and pass by those houses, and I will not harm you Israelis who live there, when I punish the Egyptians.
14 Each year, you must celebrate this festival on this day, to remember what I, Yahweh, have done for you. In all the generations to come, each year you must celebrate this festival. It must continue forever.
15 For seven days you must eat bread that has no yeast in it. On the first day of that week you must get rid of all the yeast that is in your houses. During those seven days, if anyone eats bread that is baked with yeast in it, you must consider that person to be no longer an Israeli.
16 On the first day of that week, you must ◄have a holy meeting/gather together to worship me►. You must do the same thing on the seventh day. People must not work on those two days. The only work they may do is to prepare food for you to eat.
17 Every year you must keep celebrating this festival of eating bread that has no yeast in it, because it will remind you that it was on this day that I brought all your tribal groups out of Egypt. So every year, in all the generations to come, you must celebrate this day as a festival. It must continue forever.
18-19 In the first month of the year, on the 14th day of that month, the only bread you may eat is bread that has no yeast in it. You must keep doing that each day until the 21st day of that month. For those seven days you must not have any yeast in your house. During that time, if anyone, either an Israeli or a foreigner, eats bread made with yeast, you must consider that person no longer to be an Israeli.
20 In your houses, do not eat anything that has yeast in it during those seven days.”
21 Then Moses/I summoned all the leaders of the Israeli people. He/I said to them, “Each family should select a lamb and kill it, in order that you may eat it to celebrate the festival that will be called ‘Passover’.
22 Let the lamb’s blood drain into a basin. Get a bunch/sprig of ◄hyssop/a very leafy plant► and dip it in the blood. Then smear some of the blood on the doorposts and the ◄lintels/beams above the doorways► of your houses. The people in each house must all stay inside the house until the next morning.
23 When Yahweh goes throughout Egypt to kill the oldest male in each Egyptian family, he will see the blood on the ◄lintels/beams of your doorways►, and he will ignore and pass by those houses. He will not allow the angel who causes people to die to enter your houses and kill any of your oldest sons.
24 You and your descendants must celebrate this festival forever.
25 And when you arrive in the land that Yahweh will be giving to you as he promised, you must keep celebrating this ritual every year.
26 When your children ask you, ‘What does this ritual mean?’,
27 you must tell them, ‘This ritual is to remember how our ancestors sacrificed lambs on the night that Yahweh’s angel passed by the houses of the Israeli people when they were in Egypt. He killed the oldest males/sons in all the Egyptian houses, but he spared the sons in [MTY] our houses.’ ” After Moses/I told them this, they all bowed their heads and worshiped Yahweh.
28 Then the Israeli people did what Yahweh had told Aaron and Moses/me to tell them to do.
Yahweh killed all the oldest Egyptian males
29 At midnight Yahweh killed all the oldest sons of the Egyptian people, all over Egypt. That included the king’s oldest son, the oldest sons of the prisoners in the dungeon/jail, and the oldest sons of everyone else. He also killed the oldest males of all the Egyptians’ livestock.
30 That night the king, all his officials, and all the rest of the Egyptian people awoke and discovered what had happened. They wailed loudly all over Egypt, because in every house, someone’s son had died.
The Israeli people left Egypt
31 That night the king summoned Aaron and Moses/me and said, “You and all the other Israeli people, must leave my country immediately! Go and worship Yahweh, as you requested!
32 Take your flocks of sheep and goats and herds of cattle, and leave! And ask Yahweh to bless me, also!”
33 Then the Israeli people did as Moses/I had told them. They went to their Egyptian neighbors and asked them for silver and gold jewelry and clothing.
34 Yahweh caused the Egyptian people to greatly respect the Israeli people, so they gave them what they asked for. In that way, they carried away the wealth of the Egyptian people.
35 The Egyptians urged the Israeli people to leave their country quickly. They said, “If you do not do that, we will all die!”
36 So the Israeli people prepared to leave at once. They took the bowls in which they mixed the dough to make bread, and the dough that was in the bowls without any yeast in it, and they wrapped the bowls in their cloaks. They put the bowls on their shoulders and left.
37 The Israeli people traveled from Rameses city to Succoth town. There were about 600,000 men who went, in addition to the women and children.
38 Many other people who were not Israelis went along with them. There were also livestock, the flocks of sheep and goats and herds of cattle.
39 On their way, they baked bread with the dough that they carried with them when they had been expelled from Egypt. The dough did not have yeast in it, because they were told to leave Egypt so quickly that they did not have enough time to get food ready to take with them, or enough time to mix yeast in the dough.
40 The Israeli people had lived in Egypt 430 years.
41 On the day that those 430 years ended, on that very day, all the tribes of Yahweh’s people left Egypt.
42 It was a night when Yahweh ◄protected/guarded over► them as he brought them out of Egypt. So this same night every year is a night that is dedicated to Yahweh, a night when the Israeli people in every generation remember how Yahweh protected our ancestors.
Yahweh instructed Moses and Aaron about future Passover festivals
43-44 Then Yahweh said this to Aaron and Moses/me: “These are my instructions about the Passover ritual: Do not let foreigners eat the Passover meal. But any male slaves that you have bought may eat it after you have circumcised them.
45 Do not let people who are living among you temporarily, or servants whom you have hired, eat the Passover meal.
46 Each family must eat the Passover meal inside their own house. Do not take any of the food outside the house. And do not break any of the bones of the lamb that is sacrificed.
47 All the Israeli people must celebrate this festival.
48 When someone from another country comes to live with you and wants to celebrate the Passover Festival, circumcise all the males in his household. Then they may eat the Passover meal, and you should treat those people as though they were born as Israelis. But do not allow men who have not been circumcised to eat the Passover meal.
49 These rules apply to people who were born as Israelis and to foreigners who come and live among you.”
50 All the Israeli people obeyed Aaron and Moses/me and did what Yahweh had commanded.
51 On that very day Yahweh brought all the tribes of the Israeli people out of Egypt.