²⁹Now at midnight the Lord struck every firstborn male in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the prisoner who was in the dungeon, and every firstborn of the livestock.^d ³⁰During the night Pharaoh got up, he along with all his officials and all the Egyptians, and there was a loud wailing^e throughout Egypt because there wasn’t a house without someone dead. ³¹He summoned Moses and Aaron during the night and said, “Get out immediately from among my people, both you and the Israelites, and go, worship the Lord as you have said. ³²Take even your flocks and your herds as you asked and leave, and also bless me.”

³³Now the Egyptians pressured the people in order to send them quickly out of the country, for they said, “We’re all going to die!”^f ³⁴So the people took their dough before it was leavened, with their kneading bowls wrapped up in their clothes on their shoulders.

³⁵The Israelites acted on Moses’s word and asked the Egyptians for silver and gold items and for clothing.^g ³⁶And the Lord gave the people such favor with the Egyptians that they gave them what they requested. In this way they plundered the Egyptians.

³⁷The Israelites traveled from Rameses to Succoth,^h about six hundred thousandⁱ able-bodied men on foot, besides their families. ³⁸A mixed crowd also went up with them, along with a huge number of livestock, both flocks and herds. ³⁹The people baked the dough they had brought out of Egypt into unleavened loaves, since it had no yeast; for when they were driven^j out of Egypt, they could not delay and had not prepared provisions for themselves.

⁴⁰The time that the Israelites lived in Egypt^A was 430 years.^k ⁴¹At the end of 430 years, on that same day, all the Lord’s military divisions went out from the land of Egypt. ⁴²It was a night of vigil in honor of the Lord, because he would bring them out of the land of Egypt. This same night is in honor of the Lord, a night vigil for all the Israelites throughout their generations.^l

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Footnotes

A, add and in Canaan

Cross references

d Ex 4:23; 11:4; Nm 8:17; 33:4; Ps 78:51; 135:8
e Ex 11:6; Am 5:17
f Ex 11:8; Ps 105:38
g Gn 15:14; Ex 3:21; Ps 105:37
h Gn 47:11; Nm 33:3,5
i Ex 38:26; Nm 1:46; 11:21
j Ex 6:1; 12:33
k Gn 15:13–16; Ac 7:6; Gl 3:17
l Ex 13:10; Dt 16:1,6