Exodus 12:3-20
Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month they must each select an animal of the flock according to their fathers’ households, one animal per household.If the household is too small for a whole animal, that person and the neighbor nearest his house are to select one based on the combined number of people; you should apportion the animal according to what each person will eat.You must have an unblemished animal, a year-old male; you may take it from either the sheep or the goats.You are to keep it until the fourteenth day of this month; then the whole assembly of the community of Israel will slaughter the animals at twilight.They must take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses where they eat them.They are to eat the meat that night; they should eat it, roasted over the fire along with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.Do not eat any of it raw or cooked in boiling water, but only roasted over fire— its head as well as its legs and inner organs.Do not let any of it remain until morning; you must burn up any part of it that does remain before morning.Here is how you must eat it: you must be dressed for travel, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. You are to eat it in a hurry; it is the Lord’s Passover.“ I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night and strike every firstborn male in the land of Egypt, both man and beast. I am Yahweh; I will execute judgments against all the gods of Egypt.The blood on the houses where you are staying will be a distinguishing mark for you; when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No plague will be among you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.“ This day is to be a memorial for you, and you must celebrate it as a festival to the Lord. You are to celebrate it throughout your generations as a permanent statute.You must eat unleavened bread for seven days. On the first day you must remove yeast from your houses. Whoever eats what is leavened from the first day through the seventh day must be cut off from Israel.You are to hold a sacred assembly on the first day and another sacred assembly on the seventh day. No work may be done on those days except for preparing what people need to eat— you may do only that.“ You are to observe the Festival of Unleavened Bread because on this very day I brought your divisions out of the land of Egypt. You must observe this day throughout your generations as a permanent statute.You are to eat unleavened bread in the first month, from the evening of the fourteenth day of the month until the evening of the twenty-first day.Yeast must not be found in your houses for seven days. If anyone eats something leavened, that person, whether a foreign resident or native of the land, must be cut off from the community of Israel.Do not eat anything leavened; eat unleavened bread in all your homes.”
2 Chronicles 35 1-2 Chronicles 35 19
Josiah observed the Lord’s Passover and slaughtered the Passover lambs on the fourteenth day of the first month.He appointed the priests to their responsibilities and encouraged them to serve in the Lord’s temple.He said to the Levites who taught all Israel the holy things of the Lord,“ Put the holy ark in the temple built by Solomon son of David king of Israel. Since you do not have to carry it on your shoulders, now serve Yahweh your God and His people Israel.“ Organize your ancestral houses by your divisions according to the written instruction of David king of Israel and that of his son Solomon.Serve in the holy place by the divisions of the ancestral houses for your brothers, the lay people, and the distribution of the tribal household of the Levites.Slaughter the Passover lambs, consecrate yourselves, and make preparations for your brothers to carry out the word of the Lord through Moses.”Then Josiah donated 30,000 sheep, lambs, and young goats, plus 3,000 bulls from his own possessions, for the Passover sacrifices for all the lay people who were present.His officials also donated willingly for the people, the priests, and the Levites. Hilkiah, Zechariah, and Jehiel, chief officials of God’s temple, gave 2,600 Passover sacrifices and 300 bulls for the priests.Conaniah and his brothers Shemaiah and Nethanel, and Hashabiah, Jeiel, and Jozabad, officers of the Levites, donated 5,000 Passover sacrifices for the Levites, plus 500 bulls.So the service was established; the priests stood at their posts and the Levites in their divisions according to the king’s command.Then they slaughtered the Passover lambs, and while the Levites were skinning the animals, the priests sprinkled the blood they had been given.They removed the burnt offerings so that they might be given to the divisions of the ancestral houses of the lay people to offer to the Lord, according to what is written in the book of Moses; they did the same with the bulls.They roasted the Passover lambs with fire according to regulation. They boiled the holy sacrifices in pots, kettles, and bowls; and they quickly brought them to the lay people.Afterward, they made preparations for themselves and for the priests, since the priests, the descendants of Aaron, were busy offering up burnt offerings and fat until night. So the Levites made preparations for themselves and for the priests, the descendants of Aaron.The singers, the descendants of Asaph, were at their stations according to the command of David, Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthun the king’s seer. Also, the gatekeepers were at each gate. None of them left their tasks because their Levite brothers had made preparations for them.So all the service of the Lord was established that day for observing the Passover and for offering burnt offerings on the altar of the Lord, according to the command of King Josiah.The Israelites who were present in Judah also observed the Passover at that time and the Festival of Unleavened Bread for seven days.No Passover had been observed like it in Israel since the days of Samuel the prophet. None of the kings of Israel ever observed a Passover like the one that Josiah observed with the priests, the Levites, all Judah, the Israelites who were present in Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem.In the eighteenth year of Josiah’s reign, this Passover was observed.
