Study Desk

Pharaoh said, "I will let you go to offer sacrifices to the Lord your God in the wilderness, but you must not go very far. Now pray for me."

For by now I could have stretched out my hand and struck you and your people with a plague that would have wiped you off the earth.

But I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I might show you my power and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.

Pray to the Lord , for we have had enough thunder and hail. I will let you go; you don't have to stay any longer."

Then the Lord said to Moses, "Go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his officials so that I may perform these signs of mine among them

No! Have only the men go and worship the Lord , since that's what you have been asking for." Then Moses and Aaron were driven out of Pharaoh's presence.

So Moses stretched out his hand toward the sky, and total darkness covered all Egypt for three days.

No one could see anyone else or move about for three days. Yet all the Israelites had light in the places where they lived.

Tell the people that men and women alike are to ask their neighbors for articles of silver and gold."

"This month is to be for you the first month, the first month of your year.

Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each man is to take a lamb for his family, one for each household.

If any household is too small for a whole lamb, they must share one with their nearest neighbor, having taken into account the number of people there are. You are to determine the amount of lamb needed in accordance with what each person will eat.

The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt.

"This is a day you are to commemorate; for the generations to come you shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord —a lasting ordinance.

For seven days you are to eat bread made without yeast. On the first day remove the yeast from your houses, for whoever eats anything with yeast in it from the first day through the seventh must be cut off from Israel.

On the first day hold a sacred assembly, and another one on the seventh day. Do no work at all on these days, except to prepare food for everyone to eat; that is all you may do.

"Celebrate the Festival of Unleavened Bread, because it was on this very day that I brought your divisions out of Egypt. Celebrate this day as a lasting ordinance for the generations to come.

For seven days no yeast is to be found in your houses. And anyone, whether foreigner or native-born, who eats anything with yeast in it must be cut off from the community of Israel.

Then Moses summoned all the elders of Israel and said to them, "Go at once and select the animals for your families and slaughter the Passover lamb.

"Obey these instructions as a lasting ordinance for you and your descendants.