11:1 1 The Lord said to Moses, “I will bring one more plague on Pharaoh and on Egypt; after that he will release you from this place. When he releases you, 2 he will drive you out completely 3 from this place. 11:2 Instruct 4 the people that each man and each woman is to request 5 from his or her neighbor 6 items of silver and gold.” 7
11:3 (Now the Lord granted the people favor with 8 the Egyptians. Moreover, the man Moses was very great in the land of Egypt, respected by Pharaoh’s servants and by the Egyptian people.) 9
11:4 Moses said, “Thus says the Lord: ‘About midnight 10 I will go throughout Egypt, 11 11:5 and all the firstborn in the land of Egypt will die, from the firstborn son of Pharaoh 12 who sits on his throne, to the firstborn son of the slave girl who is at her hand mill, and all the firstborn of the cattle. 11:6 There will be a great cry throughout the whole land of Egypt, such as there has never been, 13 nor ever will be again. 14 11:7 But against any of the Israelites not even a dog will bark 15 against either people or animals, 16 so that you may know that the Lord distinguishes 17 between Egypt and Israel.’ 11:8 All these your servants will come down to me and bow down 18 to me, saying, ‘Go, you and all the people who follow 19 you,’ and after that I will go out.” Then Moses 20 went out from Pharaoh in great anger.
11:9 The Lord said to Moses, “Pharaoh will not listen to you, so that my wonders 21 may be multiplied in the land of Egypt.”
11:10 So Moses and Aaron did all these wonders before Pharaoh, but the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he did not release the Israelites from his land.
12:1 22 The Lord said 23 to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, 24 12:2 “This month is to be your beginning of months; it will be your first month of the year. 25 12:3 Tell the whole community of Israel, ‘In the tenth day of this month they each 26 must take a lamb 27 for themselves according to their families 28 – a lamb for each household. 29 12:4 If any household is too small 30 for a lamb, 31 the man 32 and his next-door neighbor 33 are to take 34 a lamb according to the number of people – you will make your count for the lamb according to how much each one can eat. 35 12:5 Your lamb must be 36 perfect, 37 a male, one year old; 38 you may take 39 it from the sheep or from the goats. 12:6 You must care for it 40 until the fourteenth day of this month, and then the whole community 41 of Israel will kill it around sundown. 42 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; 43 they will eat it roasted over the fire with bread made without yeast 44 and with bitter herbs. 12:9 Do not eat it raw 45 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, 46 your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. You are to eat it in haste. It is the Lord’s Passover. 47
12:12 I will pass through 48 the land of Egypt in the same 49 night, and I will attack 50 all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both of humans and of animals, 51 and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment. 52 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 53 the blood I will pass over you, 54 and this plague 55 will not fall on you to destroy you 56 when I attack 57 the land of Egypt. 58
12:14 This day will become 59 a memorial 60 for you, and you will celebrate it as a festival 61 to the Lord – you will celebrate it perpetually as a lasting ordinance. 62 12:15 For seven days 63 you must eat 64 bread made without yeast. 65 Surely 66 on the first day you must put away yeast from your houses because anyone who eats bread made with yeast 67 from the first day to the seventh day will be cut off 68 from Israel.
12:16 On the first day there will be a holy convocation, 69 and on the seventh day there will be a holy convocation for you. You must do no work of any kind 70 on them, only what every person will eat – that alone may be prepared for you. 12:17 So you will keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread, because on this very 71 day I brought your regiments 72 out from the land of Egypt, and so you must keep this day perpetually as a lasting ordinance. 73 12:18 In the first month, 74 from the fourteenth day of the month, in the evening, you will eat bread made without yeast until the twenty-first day of the month in the evening. 12:19 For seven days 75 yeast must not be found in your houses, for whoever eats what is made with yeast – that person 76 will be cut off from the community of Israel, whether a foreigner 77 or one born in the land. 12:20 You will not eat anything made with yeast; in all the places where you live you must eat bread made without yeast.’”
12:21 Then Moses summoned all the elders of Israel, and told them, “Go and select 78 for yourselves a lamb or young goat 79 for your families, and kill the Passover animals. 80 12:22 Take a branch of hyssop, 81 dip it in the blood that is in the basin, 82 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 83 the door of his house until morning. 12:23 For the Lord will pass through to strike Egypt, and when he sees 84 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 85 to enter your houses to strike you. 86 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 87 this ceremony. 12:26 When your children ask you, ‘What does this ceremony mean to you?’ 88 – 12:27 then you will say, ‘It is the sacrifice 89 of the Lord’s Passover, when he passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt, when he struck 90 Egypt and delivered our households.’” The people bowed down low 91 to the ground, 12:28 and the Israelites went away and did exactly as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron. 92
12:29 93 It happened 94 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 95 in the night, 96 along with all his servants and all Egypt, and there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was no house 97 in which there was not someone dead. 12:31 Pharaoh 98 summoned Moses and Aaron in the night and said, “Get up, get out 99 from among my people, both you and the Israelites! Go, serve the Lord as you have requested! 100 12:32 Also, take your flocks and your herds, just as you have requested, and leave. But bless me also.” 101
12:33 The Egyptians were urging 102 the people on, in order to send them out of the land quickly, 103 for they were saying, “We are all dead!” 12:34 So the people took their dough before the yeast was added, 104 with their kneading troughs bound up in their clothing on their shoulders. 12:35 Now the Israelites had done 105 as Moses told them – they had requested from the Egyptians 106 silver and gold items and clothing. 12:36 The Lord 107 gave the people favor 108 in the sight of the Egyptians, and they gave them whatever they wanted, 109 and so they plundered Egypt. 110
12:37 The Israelites journeyed 111 from Rameses 112 to Sukkoth. There were about 600,000 men 113 on foot, plus their dependants. 114 12:38 A mixed multitude 115 also went up with them, and flocks and herds – a very large number of cattle. 116 12:39 They baked cakes of bread without yeast using the dough they had brought from Egypt, for it was made without yeast – because they were thrust out 117 of Egypt and were not able to delay, they 118 could not prepare 119 food for themselves either.
12:40 Now the length of time the Israelites lived in Egypt was 430 years. 120 12:41 At the end of the 430 years, on the very day, all the regiments 121 of the Lord went out of the land of Egypt. 12:42 It was a night of vigil for the Lord to bring them out from the land of Egypt, 122 and so 123 on this night all Israel is to keep the vigil 124 to the Lord for generations to come.
12:43 125 The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “This is the ordinance of the Passover. No foreigner may 126 share in eating it. 127 12:44 But everyone’s servant who is bought for money, after you have circumcised him, may eat it. 12:45 A foreigner and a hired worker must not eat it. 12:46 It must be eaten in one house; you must not bring any of the meat outside the house, and you must not break a bone of it. 12:47 The whole community of Israel must observe it.
12:48 “When a foreigner lives 128 with you and wants to observe the Passover to the Lord, all his males must be circumcised, 129 and then he may approach and observe it, and he will be like one who is born in the land 130 – but no uncircumcised person may eat of it. 12:49 The same law will apply 131 to the person who is native-born and to the foreigner who lives among you.”
12:50 So all the Israelites did exactly as the Lord commanded Moses and Aaron. 132 12:51 And on this very day the Lord brought the Israelites out of the land of Egypt by their regiments.
13:1 133 The Lord spoke 134 to Moses: 13:2 “Set apart 135 to me every firstborn male – the first offspring of every womb 136 among the Israelites, whether human or animal; it is mine.” 137
13:3 Moses said to the people, “Remember 138 this day on which you came out from Egypt, from the place where you were enslaved, 139 for the Lord brought you out of there 140 with a mighty hand – and no bread made with yeast may be eaten. 141 13:4 On this day, 142 in the month of Abib, 143 you are going out. 144
13:5 When 145 the Lord brings you to the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Hivites, and Jebusites, which he swore to your fathers to give you, a land flowing with milk and honey, 146 then you will keep 147 this ceremony 148 in this month. 13:6 For seven days 149 you must eat 150 bread made without yeast, and on the seventh day there is to be 151 a festival to the Lord. 13:7 Bread made without yeast must be eaten 152 for seven days; 153 no bread made with yeast shall be seen 154 among you, and you must have no yeast among you within any of your borders.
13:8 You are to tell your son 155 on that day, 156 ‘It is 157 because of what 158 the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt.’ 13:9 159 It 160 will be a sign 161 for you on your hand and a memorial 162 on your forehead, 163 so that the law of the Lord may be 164 in your mouth, 165 for 166 with a mighty hand the Lord brought you out of Egypt. 13:10 So you must keep 167 this ordinance at its appointed time from year to year. 168
13:11 When the Lord brings you 169 into the land of the Canaanites, 170 as he swore to you and to your fathers, and gives it 171 to you, 13:12 then you must give over 172 to the Lord the first offspring of every womb. 173 Every firstling 174 of a beast that you have 175 – the males will be the Lord’s. 176 13:13 Every firstling 177 of a donkey you must redeem 178 with a lamb, and if you do not redeem it, then you must break its neck. 179 Every firstborn of 180 your sons you must redeem.
13:14 181 In the future, 182 when your son asks you 183 ‘What is this?’ 184 you are to tell him, ‘With a mighty hand 185 the Lord brought us out from Egypt, from the land of slavery. 186 13:15 When Pharaoh stubbornly refused 187 to release us, the Lord killed all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of people to the firstborn of animals. 188 That is why I am sacrificing 189 to the Lord the first male offspring of every womb, but all my firstborn sons I redeem.’ 13:16 It will be for a sign on your hand and for frontlets 190 on your forehead, for with a mighty hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt.” 191
13:17 192 When Pharaoh released 193 the people, God did not lead them 194 by the way to the land 195 of the Philistines, 196 although 197 that was nearby, for God said, 198 “Lest 199 the people change their minds 200 and return to Egypt when they experience 201 war.” 13:18 So God brought the people around by the way of the desert to the Red Sea, 202 and the Israelites went up from the land of Egypt prepared for battle. 203
13:19 Moses took the bones of Joseph with him, for Joseph 204 had made the Israelites solemnly swear, 205 “God will surely attend 206 to you, and you will carry 207 my bones up from this place with you.”
13:20 They journeyed from Sukkoth and camped in Etham, on the edge of the desert. 13:21 Now the Lord was going before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them in the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, 208 so that they could 209 travel day or night. 210 13:22 He did not remove the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night from before the people. 211