Through My Bible Yr 03 – June 19
Exodus 12:1-36
Exodus 12
Instructions for the Passover and the Festival of Unleavened Bread
1 The Lord told Moses and Aaron this in the land of Egypt: [1]
2 This month is to be the beginning of your calendar. It is to be the first month of the year for you. 3 Tell the entire Israelite community that on the tenth day of this month, they are to take a lamb or a young goat [2] for themselves, according to their fathers’ households, one lamb per household. 4 But if the household is too small for a whole lamb, then that person and his neighbor next door to him must select one, based on the number of people. Determine what size lamb is needed according to how much each person will eat.
5 Your lamb must be unblemished, a year-old male. You may take it from the sheep or the goats. 6 You are to keep it until the fourteenth day of this month. Then the whole assembly of the Israelite community is to slaughter the lambs at sunset. [3] 7 They shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses where they eat the lamb. 8 That night they shall eat the meat that has been roasted over a fire, along with unleavened bread. They shall eat it with bitter herbs. 9 Do not eat it raw or boiled in water, but roasted over a fire—with its head, its legs, and its internal organs. 10 You shall not leave any of it until the morning. Whatever remains until the morning, you shall burn in the fire. 11 This is how you are to eat it: with your cloak tucked into your belt ready for travel, [4] your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. Eat it in haste. It is the Lord’s Passover.
12 For on that night I will pass through the land of Egypt. I will strike down every firstborn in the land of Egypt, both people and animals. Against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment. I am the Lord. 13 The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are. When I see the blood, I will pass over you. There will be no plague among you to destroy you when I strike down the land of Egypt.
14 This day shall be a memorial for you, and you are to celebrate it as a festival to the Lord. Throughout your generations you must celebrate it as a permanent regulation. 15 For seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you must be sure to remove all yeast from your houses, for whoever eats anything leavened from the first day until the seventh day will be cut off from Israel. 16 On the first day you are to have a holy convocation; also on the seventh day there is to be a holy convocation. You shall not do any work, except to prepare what everybody needs to eat. That is all you may do.
17 You shall observe the Festival of Unleavened Bread, because on this very day I brought your divisions out from the land of Egypt. You shall observe this day throughout your generations as a permanent regulation. 18 In the first month, you shall eat unleavened bread from the evening of the fourteenth day of the month until the evening of the twenty-first day of the month. 19 No yeast is to be found in your houses for seven days, for whoever eats something leavened must be cut off from the Israelite community, whether a foreigner or native-born of the land. 20 You shall not eat anything leavened. You shall eat unleavened bread in every place you live.
21 Then Moses summoned all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Go and take lambs for yourselves according to your family size, and slaughter the Passover lamb. 22 You shall take a bundle of hyssop, dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and paint the lintel and the two doorposts with the blood that is in the basin. None of you are to go out of the door of your house until morning. 23 When the Lord passes through to strike Egypt and sees the blood on the lintel and the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over that door and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you.
24 “You shall observe these instructions as a perpetual regulation for you and your descendants. 25 When you enter the land that the Lord will give you just as he said he would, you shall observe this ceremony. 26 So when your children ask you, ‘What does this ceremony mean to you?’ 27 you will say, ‘It is the sacrifice of the Passover to the Lord, who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt. When he struck the Egyptians, he spared our houses.’”
The people bowed down and worshipped. 28 The Israelites went and did all this. They did just as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron.
The Exodus
29 At midnight the Lord struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sat on his throne, to the firstborn of the prisoner who was in the dungeon, even all the firstborn of the livestock. 30 During the night Pharaoh got up—he, all his servants, and all the Egyptians—and there was a loud outcry in Egypt, for there was not a house where there was not someone dead. 31 Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron that night and said, “Get up, get away from my people! Both you and the Israelites, go, serve the Lord, as you have said! 32 Take also your flocks and your herds, as you have said, and go! But also bless me!”
33 The Egyptians urged the people to leave the land quickly, for the Egyptians said, “We are all going to die!” 34 The Israelites took their dough before it was leavened. They carried their kneading bowls, which were wrapped in their clothing, on their shoulders. 35 The Israelites did just as Moses had said, and they asked the Egyptians for articles of silver, articles of gold, and clothing. 36 The Lord gave the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians so that they let the Israelites have what they asked for. In this way they plundered the Egyptians.
Footnotes
- Exodus 12:1 Throughout the translation, long speeches, sets of instructions, and oracles are treated as single documents, not as sets of quotations. Such documents are not set off by quotation marks. Within these documents, regular rules for quotation marks apply.
- Exodus 12:3 One Hebrew word means both lamb and kid.
- Exodus 12:6 Literally between the evenings, very likely between sunset and darkness
- Exodus 12:11 Literally with your hips girded
The Holy Bible, Evangelical Heritage Version®, EHV®, © 2019 Wartburg Project, Inc. All rights reserved.
