Deuteronomy 16:1-8

The Passover Festival

16:1This chapter describes three special festivals or feasts.

1 The month Abib is a special month for you. In this month, you must eat a meal to remember the Passover. Remember what the Lord your God did for you. In that month, he brought you out of Egypt during the night. 2 You must go to the special place that the Lord will choose for his people to worship him. There you must kill one of your animals as a sacrifice to remember the Passover. You may kill one of your cows or sheep. 3 At this feast, eat bread that you make without any yeast. For seven days, you must eat bread that you make without yeast. You ate that kind of bread when you had much trouble in Egypt. You had to leave Egypt in a hurry that night. You must eat that bread each year. Then you will always remember the day when you left Egypt. 4 During those seven days, no one may keep any yeast in their house. There must not be any yeast in the whole land. On the first day, you will kill your animal to eat in the evening. You must eat all the meat that same night, so that there is no meat left in the morning.

16:1Abib was a month in the Hebrew calendar that came in March and April. See Leviticus 23:4-8.

5 You must not kill the animal for the Passover sacrifice in any of the towns that the Lord your God gives to you. 6 You must go to the place that he will choose as his special home. You must kill the animal there, at sunset. That was the time of day when you came out of Egypt. 7 Cook the meat and eat it in the place that the Lord your God will choose. The next morning, you may return to your tents. 8 For the next six days, you must eat bread that you make without yeast. On the seventh day, you must all come together to worship the Lord your God. You must not do any work on that day.