The Promise of Passover

The Promise of Passover

SCRIPTURE READING

Exodus 12:1-13; 13:1-8
1The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt: 2This month
shall mark for you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of
the year for you. 3Tell the whole congregation of Israel that on the tenth
of this month they are to take a lamb for each family, a lamb for each
household. 4 If a household is too small for a whole lamb, it shall join its
closest neighbor in obtaining one; the lamb shall be divided in proportion
to the number of people who eat of it. 5Your lamb shall be without
blemish, a year-old male; you may take it from the sheep or from the
goats. 6You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month; then the
whole assembled congregation of Israel shall slaughter it at twilight.
7They shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and
the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. 8They shall eat the lamb that
same night; they shall eat it roasted over the fire with unleavened bread
and bitter herbs. 9Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted
over the fire, with its head, legs, and inner organs. 10You shall let none of
it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you
shall burn. 11This is how you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals
on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it hurriedly. It
is the passover of the Lord.
12For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike
down every firstborn in the land of Egypt, both human beings and
animals; on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the
Lord. 13The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live:
when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall destroy
you when I strike the land of Egypt.


1The Lord said to Moses: 2Consecrate to me all the firstborn; whatever is
the first to open the womb among the Israelites, of human beings and
animals, is mine. 3Moses said to the people, “Remember this day on
which you came out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, because the
Lord brought you out from there by strength of hand; no leavened bread
shall be eaten. 4Today, in the month of Abib, you are going out. 5When
the Lord brings you into the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the
Amorites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, which he swore to your
ancestors to give you, a land flowing with milk and honey, you shall
keep this observance in this month. 6Seven days you shall eat unleavened
bread, and on the seventh day there shall be a festival to the Lord.
7Unleavened bread shall be eaten for seven days; no leavened bread shall
be seen in your possession, and no leaven shall be seen among you in all
your territory. 8You shall tell your child on that day, ‘It is because of
what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt.’


Reader: Word of God. Word of life.
All: Thanks be to God.