Moses & The Exodus

You are to observe the festival of matzah, for on this very day I brought your divisions out of the land of Egypt. Therefore, you are to observe this day from generation to generation by a perpetual regulation.

From the evening of the fourteenth day of the first month until the evening of the twenty-first day, you are to eat matzah.

During those seven days, no leaven is to be found in your houses. Whoever eats food with hametz in it is to be cut off from the community of Isra'el - it doesn't matter whether he is a foreigner or a citizen of the land.

Eat nothing with hametz in it. Wherever you live, eat matzah.'"

Then Moshe called for all the leaders of Isra'el and said, "Select and take lambs for your families, and slaughter the Pesach lamb.

Take a bunch of hyssop leaves and dip it in the blood which is in the basin, and smear it on the two sides and top of the door-frame. Then, none of you is to go out the door of his house until morning.

For ADONAI will pass through to kill the Egyptians; but when he sees the blood on the top and on the two sides, ADONAI will pass over the door and will not allow the Slaughterer to enter your houses and kill you.

You are to observe this as a law, you and your descendants forever.

"When you come to the land which ADONAI will give you, as he has promised, you are to observe this ceremony.

When your children ask you, 'What do you mean by this ceremony?'

say, 'It is the sacrifice of ADONAI's Pesach [Passover], because [ADONAI] passed over the houses of the people of Isra'el in Egypt, when he killed the Egyptians but spared our houses.'"The people of Isra'el bowed their heads and worshipped.

Then the people of Isra'el went and did as ADONAI had ordered Moshe and Aharon - that is what they did.

At midnight ADONAI killed all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh sitting on his throne to the firstborn of the prisoner in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of livestock.

Pharaoh got up in the night, he, all his servants and all the Egyptians; and there was horrendous wailing in Egypt; for there wasn't a single house without someone dead in it.

He summoned Moshe and Aharon by night and said, "Up and leave my people, both you and the people of Isra'el; and go, serve ADONAI as you said.

Take both your flocks and your herds, as you said; and get out of here! But bless me, too."

The Egyptians pressed to send the people out of the land quickly, because they said, "Otherwise we'll all be dead!"

The people took their dough before it had become leavened and wrapped their kneading bowls in their clothes on their shoulders.

The people of Isra'el had done what Moshe had said - they had asked the Egyptians to give them silver and gold jewelry and clothing;

and ADONAI had made the Egyptians so favorably disposed toward the people that they had let them have whatever they requested. Thus they plundered the Egyptians.

The people of Isra'el traveled from Ra'amses to Sukkot, some six hundred thousand men on foot, not counting children.

A mixed crowd also went up with them, as well as livestock in large numbers, both flocks and herds.

They baked matzah loaves from the dough they had brought out of Egypt, since it was unleavened; because they had been driven out of Egypt without time to prepare supplies for themselves.

The time the people of Isra'el lived in Egypt was 430 years.

At the end of 430 years to the day, all the divisions of ADONAI left the land of Egypt.