1 In the land of Egypt the LORD said to Moses and Aaron,
2 "This month is to be the first of months for you; count it as the first month of your year.
3 Tell the whole congregation of Israel that on the tenth of this month each man is to take a lamb for his father's house, one lamb per household.
4 If a household is too small for a whole lamb, the man and the neighbor living closest to him are to take one, according to the number of people there are. Count how many will share the lamb by what each person eats.
5 The animal you take must be a flawless male in its first year; you may take it from the sheep or from the goats.
6 Keep it in your care until the fourteenth day of this month; then the entire assembly of the congregation of Israel is to slaughter their lambs at twilight.
7 They are to take some of the blood and smear it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses where they will eat the lambs.
8 That same night they are to eat the meat roasted over the fire, eating it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.
9 Do not eat any of it raw or cooked in water, but only roasted over the fire, head, legs and inner organs.
10 Leave none of it over until morning; whatever is still left in the morning you must burn up.
11 This is how you are to eat it: with your belt tied, your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand. Eat it in a hurry; it is the LORD's Passover.
12 That night I will go through the land of Egypt and strike down every firstborn in the land of Egypt, both people and animals, and on all the gods of Egypt I will carry out judgments. I am the LORD.
13 The blood on the houses where you are staying will be your sign. When I see the blood I will pass over you, and no plague will fall on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.
14 This day will be a day of remembrance for you. Celebrate it as a feast to the LORD; for all your generations to come you are to celebrate it as a lasting ordinance.
15 For seven days eat unleavened bread. On the first day clear the leaven out of your houses, for anyone who eats something leavened from the first day through the seventh is to be cut off from Israel.
16 On the first day and again on the seventh you are to hold a holy assembly. Do no work at all on those days, except to prepare what each person needs to eat; that alone you may do.
17 Observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, because on this very day I brought your armies out of the land of Egypt. Observe this day in all your generations as a lasting ordinance.
18 In the first month you are to eat unleavened bread from the evening of the fourteenth day until the evening of the twenty-first day of the month.
19 For seven days no leaven may be found in your houses. Anyone, whether foreigner or native-born, who eats anything leavened is to be cut off from the congregation of Israel.
20 Eat nothing leavened. Wherever you live, you must eat unleavened bread.'"
21 Moses summoned all the elders of Israel and told them, "Go, pick out lambs for your clans and slaughter the Passover.
22 Take a bundle of hyssop, dip it into the blood in the basin and touch the lintel and both doorposts with the blood from the basin. Not one of you may go out the door of his house until morning.
23 When the LORD goes through to strike Egypt, he will see the blood on the lintel and both doorposts, and the LORD will pass over that door; he will not let the destroyer enter your houses to strike you.
24 Keep this command as an ordinance for you and your children forever.
25 When you enter the land the LORD will give you, as he promised, keep this rite.
26 And when your children ask you, 'What does this rite of yours mean?'
27 tell them, 'It is the Passover sacrifice to the LORD, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt when he struck the Egyptians and spared our homes.'" Then the people bowed down and worshiped.
28 The children of Israel went off and did exactly what the LORD had commanded Moses and Aaron.
29 At midnight the LORD struck down every firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sat on his throne, to the firstborn of the prisoner in the dungeon, as well as all the firstborn of the livestock.
30 Pharaoh got up during the night, he and all his servants and all Egypt, and there was loud wailing in Egypt, because there was no house without someone dead.
31 During the night he summoned Moses and Aaron and said, "Get up! Leave my people, you and the children of Israel! Go and serve the LORD as you asked.
32 Take your flocks and your herds too, as you asked, and go. And bless me as well."
33 The Egyptians pressed the people to leave the land quickly. "Otherwise we will all die!" they said.
34 So the people picked up their dough before the leaven was added, with their kneading troughs wrapped in their cloaks on their shoulders.
35 The children of Israel had done as Moses said and had asked the Egyptians for silver and gold jewelry and for clothing.
36 And the LORD had made the Egyptians look with favor on the people, so they gave them what they asked for. In this way they stripped Egypt of its goods.
37 The children of Israel set out from Raamses for Succoth, about six hundred thousand men on foot, not counting the children.
38 A large mixed crowd went up with them as well, along with flocks and herds, a great mass of livestock.
39 From the dough they had brought out of Egypt they baked loaves of unleavened bread. It had no leaven because they had been driven out of Egypt without time to delay; they had not even prepared food for the journey.
40 The children of Israel had lived in Egypt for four hundred and thirty years.
41 At the end of the four hundred and thirty years, to the very day, all the armies of the LORD left the land of Egypt.
42 Because the LORD kept watch that night to bring them out of the land of Egypt, this same night is to be kept as a watch to the LORD by all the children of Israel for generations to come.
43 The LORD told Moses and Aaron, "This is the ordinance of the Passover: no foreigner may eat it.
44 Any slave a man has bought with money may eat it once you have circumcised him,
45 but a temporary resident or hired worker may not eat it.
46 It must be eaten inside one house. Take none of the meat outside the house, and break none of its bones.
47 The whole congregation of Israel is to celebrate it.
48 If a foreigner living among you wants to celebrate the LORD's Passover, every male in his household must be circumcised; then he may come and celebrate it, and he will be like one born in the land. But no uncircumcised man may eat it.
49 The same law applies to the native-born and to the foreigner living among you."
50 All the children of Israel did just what the LORD had commanded Moses and Aaron.
51 On that same day the LORD brought the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt, army by army.