Exodus 12:1-11 (Vespers, 3rd reading)
- 1
- Now the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying,
- 2
- “This month shall be your beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year to you.
- 3
- “Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying: ‘On the tenth of this month every man shall take for himself a lamb, according to the house of his father, a lamb for a household.
- 4
- ‘And if the household is too small for the lamb, let him and his neighbor next to his house take it according to the number of the persons; according to each man’s need you shall make your count for the lamb.
- 5
- ‘Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats.
- 6
- ‘Now you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month. Then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at twilight.
- 7
- ‘And they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses where they eat it.
- 8
- ‘Then they shall eat the flesh on that night; roasted in fire, with unleavened bread and with bitter herbs they shall eat it.
- 9
- ‘Do not eat it raw, nor boiled at all with water, but roasted in fire – its head with its legs and its entrails.
- 10
- ‘You shall let none of it remain until morning, and what remains of it until morning you shall burn with fire.
- 11
- ‘And thus you shall eat it: with a belt on your waist, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. So you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord’s Passover.