Exodus 12:18-36

18From the evening of the fourteenth day of the first month until the evening of the twenty-first day you must eat unleavened bread.

19There should be no yeast in your houses for seven days. Whoever eats anything with yeast in it must be excluded from the community of Israel, whether he is an Israelite or not.

20Eat nothing made with yeast. Wherever you live, you must eat ⌞only⌟ unleavened bread.”

21Then Moses called for all the leaders of Israel. He said to them, “Pick out a lamb or a young goat for your families, and kill the Passover animal.

22Take the branch of a hyssop plant, dip it in the blood which is in a bowl, and put some of the blood on the top and sides of the doorframes ⌞of your houses⌟. No one may leave the house until morning.

23The Lord will go throughout Egypt to kill the Egyptians. When he sees the blood on the top and sides of the doorframe, he will pass over that doorway, and he will not let the destroyer come into your home to kill you.

24“You must follow these instructions. They are a permanent law for you and your children.

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

26When your children ask you what this ceremony means to you,

27you must answer, ‘It’s the Passover sacrifice in the Lord’s honor. The Lord passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt and spared our homes when he killed the Egyptians.’ ” Then the people knelt, bowing with their faces touching the ground.

28The Israelites did as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron.

29At midnight the Lord killed every firstborn male in Egypt from the firstborn son of Pharaoh who ruled the land to the firstborn son of the prisoner in jail, and also every firstborn animal.

30Pharaoh, all his officials, and all the ⌞other⌟ Egyptians got up during the night. There was loud crying throughout Egypt because in every house someone had died.

31Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron during the night. He said, “You and the Israelites must leave my people at once. Go, worship the Lord as you asked.

32Take your flocks and herds, too, as you asked. Just go! And bless me, too!”

33The Egyptians begged the people to leave the country quickly. They said, “Soon we’ll all be dead!”

34So the people picked up their bread dough before it had risen and carried it on their shoulders in bowls, wrapped up in their clothes.

35The Israelites did what Moses had told them and asked the Egyptians for gold and silver jewelry and for clothes.

36The Lord made the Egyptians generous to the people, and they gave them what they asked for. So the Israelites stripped Egypt of its wealth.