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¹ THE LORD spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai in the first month of the second year after the children of Israel had come out of the land of Egypt, saying,² Let the children of Israel keep the passover at its appointed time.³ On the fourteenth day of this month, in the evening, you shall keep it at its appointed time; according to all its rites, and according to all its ceremonies, shall you keep it.⁴ And Moses told the children of Israel that they should keep the passover.⁵ And they kept the passover on the fourteenth day of the first month, at evening, in the wilderness of Sinai; according to all that the LORD commanded Moses, so did the children of Israel.⁶ And there were certain men who were defiled by touching the dead body of a man so that they could not keep the passover on that day; and they came before Moses and before Aaron on that day.⁷ And those men said unto them, We are defiled by touching the dead body of a man; why are we kept back from offering the offering of the LORD at the appointed time among the children of Israel?⁸ And Moses said to them, Stay where you are, and I will hear what the LORD will command concerning you.⁹ And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying,¹⁰ Speak to the children of Israel and say to them, If any man of you or of your posterity shall be unclean by touching a dead body, or is on a journey afar off, yet he shall keep the passover to the LORD.¹¹ On the fourteenth day of the second month at the evening they shall keep it, and shall eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.¹² They shall leave none of it to the morning, nor break any bone of it; according to all the ordinances of the passover they shall keep it.¹³ But the man who is clean, and is not on a journey, and yet fails to keep the passover, at its appointed time, that person shall be cut off from among his people; because he brought not the offering of the LORD at its appointed time, that man shall suffer for his sin.¹⁴ And if a proselyte shall sojourn among you and will keep the passover to the LORD, according to the ordinance of the passover and according to its statutes, so shall he do; you shall have one ordinance, both for the proselyte and for the native of the land.

¹⁵ And on the day that the tabernacle was set up, the cloud covered the tabernacle of the congregation; in front of the door of the tent of the testimony at evening there was upon the tabernacle as it were the appearance of fire, until the morning.¹⁶ So it was always: the cloud covered it by day, and the appearance of fire by night;¹⁷ And when the cloud was taken up from the tabernacle, after that the children of Israel journeyed and at the place where the cloud abode, there the children of Israel encamped.¹⁸ At the commandment of the LORD the children of Israel journeyed, and at the commandment of the LORD they encamped; all the days that the cloud abode upon the tabernacle they remained in their tents.¹⁹ And when the cloud tarried long upon the tabernacle many days, then the children of Israel kept the charge of the LORD and journeyed not.²⁰ Sometimes the cloud was a few days upon the tabernacle; then according to the commandment of the LORD they remained in their tents, and according to the commandment of the LORD they journeyed.²¹ And sometimes the cloud was upon the tabernacle from evening to morning; and when the cloud was taken up in the morning, then they journeyed; whether it was by day or by night that the cloud was taken up, they journeyed.²² And whether it was a few days or months or a year, as long as the cloud tarried upon the tabernacle, resting thereon, the children of Israel remained in their tents and journeyed not; but when the cloud was taken up, they journeyed.²³ At the commandment of the LORD they encamped, and at the commandment of the LORD they journeyed; they kept the ordinances of the LORD, at the commandment of the LORD by the hand of Moses.