Exodus 13

₁The Lord said to Moses: ₂‘You must give every firstborn son of the Israelites to Me and consecrate them. The first son of every family and the first male baby of your animals belong to Me.’

₃Then Moses said to the people: ‘You must always remember this day, the day when you went out of Egypt. You were slaves here, but the Lord helped you with his great power to go away from here. That is why you may not eat bread with yeast in it at this time. ₄You are going away today, in the month of Abib. ₅The Lord promised your forefathers that He would give you the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Hivites and the Jebusites. It is a land that is rich with food, milk and honey. And the Lord will do it. He will give you that land. When you are there, you must always celebrate this feast in this first month of the year. ₆You must eat flat bread for 7 days and on the 7th day you must celebrate a feast to honour the Lord. ₇For 7 days you may not eat any bread with yeast in it and there may not be yeast in your land. ₈On this day you must tell your children: “We celebrate_this_feast because the Lord helped us when we left Egypt. ₉This feast must help you to remember what God has done for us. It must be like a sign on your hand or a sign on your forehead, so that you will always remember and tell other people what the Lord has done for us. It is the Lord who has helped us and saved us out of Egypt with his great power. ₁₀You must celebrate_this_feast every year at this time. ₁₁The Lord will bring you into the land of Canaan, the land that He promised to give to you and your forefathers. When He gives that land to you, ₁₂you must give every firstborn son to the Lord. Every firstborn son in a family and the first male baby of your animals, they all belong to the Lord. ₁₃But you must buy back the firstborn male donkey. You must give a sheep or a goat in place of the donkey. If you do not buy the donkey back, then you must kill him by breaking his neck. You must also buy back your oldest sons, and you must give something else in their place.”

₁₄If your children ask you in the future: “What does this feast mean?” you must tell them: “God saved us with his great power from Egypt where we were slaves. ₁₅Pharaoh was stubborn, and he said we could not go away. Then the Lord killed all the firstborn sons in Egypt, the oldest sons in all their families and of their animals. That is why we sacrifice the first bull-calf and the first ram-lamb to the Lord, and why we give something else in the place of our oldest sons. ₁₆This must be like a sign on your hands and a sign between your eyes so that you can remember that the Lord has helped us to get away from Egypt with his great power.” ’

_17-18When Pharaoh let the Israelites go, God did not lead them on the road to the Philistines' land. That was the shortest road but then the Israelites would have had to make war_against the Philistines. God said: ‘If the Israelites must go to war, then maybe they will start to doubt and they will change their plans and turn_around and go back to Egypt.’

That is why God took them on a longer road through the desert to the Red Sea. ₁₉Moses took Joseph's body with him, because before Joseph died, he had made the Israelites promise that they would take his body with them. Joseph had told them: ‘God will free you, this is sure, and when He does that, then you must take my body out of this land.’

₂₀The Israelites went away from Sukkoth and they put up their tents in Etham, next to the desert. ₂₁The Lord went before them every day. In the day time He was in front of them in a cloud that led them and showed them the right road. At night, the Lord was in a fire to give them light. That is why they could walk in the day and at night. ₂₂In the day the cloud was in front of the Israelites and at night the fire was in front of them. The Lord and the cloud were always in front of the Israelites.