12:1 1 The Lord said 2 to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, 3 12:2 “This month is to be your beginning of months; it will be your first month of the year. 4 12:3 Tell the whole community of Israel, ‘In the tenth day of this month they each 5 must take a lamb 6 for themselves according to their families 7 – a lamb for each household. 8 12:4 If any household is too small 9 for a lamb, 10 the man 11 and his next-door neighbor 12 are to take 13 a lamb according to the number of people – you will make your count for the lamb according to how much each one can eat. 14 12:5 Your lamb must be 15 perfect, 16 a male, one year old; 17 you may take 18 it from the sheep or from the goats. 12:6 You must care for it 19 until the fourteenth day of this month, and then the whole community 20 of Israel will kill it around sundown. 21 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; 22 they will eat it roasted over the fire with bread made without yeast 23 and with bitter herbs. 12:9 Do not eat it raw 24 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, 25 your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. You are to eat it in haste. It is the Lord’s Passover. 26
12:12 I will pass through 27 the land of Egypt in the same 28 night, and I will attack 29 all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both of humans and of animals, 30 and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment. 31 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 32 the blood I will pass over you, 33 and this plague 34 will not fall on you to destroy you 35 when I attack 36 the land of Egypt. 37
12:14 This day will become 38 a memorial 39 for you, and you will celebrate it as a festival 40 to the Lord – you will celebrate it perpetually as a lasting ordinance. 41
12:21 Then Moses summoned all the elders of Israel, and told them, “Go and select 42 for yourselves a lamb or young goat 43 for your families, and kill the Passover animals. 44 12:22 Take a branch of hyssop, 45 dip it in the blood that is in the basin, 46 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 47 the door of his house until morning. 12:23 For the Lord will pass through to strike Egypt, and when he sees 48 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 49 to enter your houses to strike you. 50 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 51 this ceremony. 12:26 When your children ask you, ‘What does this ceremony mean to you?’ 52 – 12:27 then you will say, ‘It is the sacrifice 53 of the Lord’s Passover, when he passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt, when he struck 54 Egypt and delivered our households.’” The people bowed down low 55 to the ground, 12:28 and the Israelites went away and did exactly as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron. 56