Exodus 12:23-30

23When the Lord passes through to strike Egypt and sees the blood on the lintel and the two doorposts, he will pass over the door and not let the destroyer enter your houses to strike you.

24“Keep this command permanently as a statute for you and your descendants.

25When you enter the land that the Lord will give you as he promised, you are to observe this ceremony.

26When your children ask you, ‘What does this ceremony mean to you?’

27you are to reply, ‘It is the Passover sacrifice to the Lord, for he passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt when he struck the Egyptians, and he spared our homes.’” So the people knelt low and worshiped.

28Then the Israelites went and did this; they did just as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron.

29Now at midnight the Lord struck every firstborn male 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, and every firstborn of the livestock.

30During the night Pharaoh got up, he along with all his officials and all the Egyptians, and there was a loud wailing throughout Egypt because there wasn’t a house without someone dead.