Nine plagues had fallen upon Egypt, but Pharaoh still refused to let the people of Israel go. Now would come the last plague, the most terrible of all. Before it, however, God gave special instructions to his people.

The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt:

"This month shall be for you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year."

God was instituting something new, a celebration the people of Israel would keep forever, remembering that night of liberation.

God continued with detailed instructions:

"Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old. On the fourteenth day of this month, the whole assembly of Israel shall kill it at twilight. They shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses."

Why blood on the doors? God explained:

"The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are. When I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no destroying plague shall touch you when I strike the land of Egypt."

The lamb would die in the place of the firstborn. Its blood would protect the house from the judgment to come. It was a sacrifice offered in another's place.

God also said how the lamb was to be eaten:

"In this manner you shall eat it: with your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. You shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord's Passover. That night I will pass through the land of Egypt and strike down every firstborn, both of man and of beast, and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments. I am the Lord."

"Passover" means "passing over." God would pass over the houses marked with blood.

Moses called all the elders of Israel and said to them:

"Go, take a lamb for your families and kill the Passover lamb. Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it in the blood in the basin, and touch the lintel and the two doorposts. And let no one go out of the door of his house until morning."

On the night of the fourteenth, throughout the land of Egypt, the Israelite families obeyed God's instructions. They sacrificed their lambs, put the blood on their doors, roasted the meat, and ate in haste, dressed and ready to leave.

It was a night of expectation and awe. They knew something terrible was about to happen in Egypt. But inside their houses, protected by the blood of the lamb, they were safe.

At midnight, the Lord struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sat on his throne, to the firstborn of the captive in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of the livestock.

Pharaoh rose up in the night, he and all his servants and all the Egyptians. There was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where someone was not dead.

But in the houses of the Israelites, marked with blood, all the firstborn were alive and safe. The Lord had passed over them, and his promise was kept.

Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron by night and said:

"Get up, go out from among my people, you and the children of Israel! Go, serve the Lord as you have said. Take your flocks and your herds, and be gone. And bless me also."

After so many refusals, after ten plagues, Pharaoh let the people go. More than that: he drove them out. The Egyptians hurried the people along, urging them to leave the land quickly, for they said:

"We shall all die!"

The people took their dough before it was leavened, their kneading bowls wrapped in their cloaks on their shoulders. The children of Israel did as Moses had told them: they asked the Egyptians for objects of silver, objects of gold, and clothing. The Lord gave the people favor in the eyes of the Egyptians, who gave them what they asked. So they carried away the riches of Egypt.

The children of Israel set out from Rameses for Succoth, about six hundred thousand men on foot, not counting women and children. A great crowd of other people went up with them as well, along with flocks and herds beyond counting. With the women, the children, and the elderly, there were probably more than two million people, an enormous multitude leaving Egypt, led by Moses.

With the dough they had brought, they baked unleavened bread, because it had not risen. They had been driven out of Egypt and could not delay, nor had they prepared provisions.

The children of Israel had lived in Egypt for four hundred and thirty years. At the end of that time, on that very day, all the people of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt.

God was keeping the promise he had made to Abraham centuries before. He had told Abraham that his descendants would be strangers in a foreign land and would be enslaved, but that afterward they would come out with great riches. And now it was happening.

The Lord went before them, by day in a pillar of cloud to guide them along the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could travel by day and by night. The pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire never left their place before the people. It was the visible presence of God, guiding his people.

Imagine the scene: an immense multitude, with their flocks, their carts, their children, marching through the desert. And ahead of them all, a majestic pillar, cloud by day, fire by night, showing the way. They did not know exactly where they were going, and they had no maps. But they had something better: they had God guiding them personally.

God said to Moses:

"This day shall be a memorial for you, and you shall celebrate it as a feast to the Lord, from generation to generation. It is a statute forever."

Passover would not be celebrated only once. Israel was to keep it every year, forever, remembering the night God freed them from Egypt.

"When your children ask you what this celebration means," God said, "you shall answer: it is the sacrifice of the Lord's Passover, for he passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, when he struck the Egyptians and spared our houses."

Each generation was to tell this story to its children. The story of the liberation. The story of the lamb whose blood saved. The story of how God kept his promise and brought his people out of slavery.

That night, everything changed for the people of Israel. They ceased to be slaves and became a free nation. They ceased to be Pharaoh's property and became the people of God.

It was not by their strength or power that they were freed, but by the power of God. It was not because they were special or deserving, but because God loved them and had made a covenant with their ancestors.

The blood of the lamb saved them from death. The faithfulness of God freed them from slavery. And now a new journey began, toward the Promised Land, to become the people God had called them to be. The Exodus, the going out from Egypt, would be remembered forever as the most important event in Israel's history. And Passover would be celebrated year after year, generation after generation, remembering that God frees his people, that he keeps his promises, and that the blood of the lamb brings salvation.