Passover

Passover

Moses and Aaron went to the Pharaoh and asked that all the Hebrews be allowed to go to pray and make sacrifices to God for three days in the wilderness. But the king refused.

God sent ten plagues upon the land of Pharaoh. In the first, the waters of the Nile turned to blood and all the fish died. Then God sent a

plague of frogs; a plague of lice and flies; He killed all the cattle, horses, camels, oxen and sheep in Egypt; He sent a plague of boils to torment the Egyptian people; He sent a great hailstorm that killed every living, Egyptian creature caught in it; He sent a plague of locusts that ate every growing thing from the Egyptian land; He sent a plague of darkness that covered the land for three days.

None of the plagues harmed any of the Hebrews or their possessions. Many times Pharaoh would relent and promise to let the Israelites go, but each time he hardened his heart and would not let them.

Finally, God sent the most devastating plague of all. The Lord said to Moses, "I will bring one last plague upon Pharaoh and upon Egypt, and then he will surely let you go."

The Hebrews made themselves ready, for they knew at last they were about to be set free, and they did all the things which God had commanded.

It was on the fourteenth day of the month, and each family was instructed to slaughter a small lamb. They took a bunch of hyssop, dipped it in the blood of the lamb, and sprinkled the two side posts and the lintel of each doorway to mark their houses. Then they roasted the lamb and ate it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. None of them went out, but when evening came they ate in haste, fully dressed, even with their staffs in hand. This feast was called the Passover, to signify that the Lord passed over the houses of the Hebrews when He brought the last plague to Egypt.

At midnight, the Lord killed every first-born child in Egypt, from Pharaoh's down to the first-born of the humblest prisoner in the dungeon, and even the first-born of the cattle.

Pharaoh arose in the night with all his servants and all the Egyptians. Loud was their lamentation, for there was not a house where death had not struck. Pharaoh sent his messengers to the Hebrews, saying, "Go from our land, you and your children. Take your flocks and your herds as you have asked and be gone." And the Egyptian people urged them to go before they should all be dead. In their anxiety to see the Hebrews gone, they heaped on them presents of gold and silver, jewels and clothing.

Thus, after four hundred and thirty years in Egypt, the Hebrews left the land, about six hundred thousand men with women and children, and also with great herds and flocks. And Moses took the bones of Joseph with him.

Thus the Lord brought the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt.