The Passover meal
10 Everything was ready for the Passover to begin. The priests and the Levites stood in their places, group by group, as the king had commanded. 11 Some Levites killed the lambs for the Passover meal. They gave the blood to the priests, and the priests splashed the blood on the altar. At the same time, some Levites were removing the skins from the animals. 12 They took the animals for the burnt offerings to give to the people. They shared them among each group of families. Then each family could offer a bull to the Lord as a sacrifice, in the way that the book of Moses taught. 13 The Levites cooked the lambs for the Passover meal over a fire, as the rules taught. They boiled the meat of the holy offerings in pots and pans. Then they quickly carried the meat to all the people.
35:13Pots and pans are things that hold water so that you can cook food in them.
14 After that, the Levites prepared the Passover meal for themselves and for the priests. The priests had been busy all day, until the evening. They were offering the burnt offerings and the pieces of fat to the Lord. So the Levites prepared the meal for themselves and for the priests, Aaron's descendants.
15 Asaph's descendants, the musicians, stood in their places. Those were the places that David, Asaph, Heman and the king's prophet, Jeduthun, had chosen. The guards continued to watch the different gates all through the day. So the other Levites prepared the meal for them too.
16 So they did everything properly to serve the Lord that day. Everyone did what King Josiah had told them to do. They had the Passover meal and they offered the burnt offerings on the Lord's altar. 17 Some Israelite people were also there in Jerusalem for the Passover festival at that time. They also stayed seven more days for the festival of Flat Bread.
18 There had not been a Passover festival like that in Israel since the time of the prophet Samuel. No king of Israel had enjoyed a Passover festival as good as the one that King Josiah had. The priests, the Levites and all the people enjoyed the festival. They were the people of Judah, the people of Israel who had come to Jerusalem, as well as the people who lived in Jerusalem. 19 This Passover festival happened in the 18th year that Josiah ruled Judah as king.
