After God had brought nine troubles on Egypt, king Pharaoh told Moses to never come back to see him. Then God told Moses, "Tell the Israelite people that each family is to choose a lamb or kid from their flock. They are to kill the animal in the late afternoon. Then they must take some of the blood from the animal and put it on the door frame above the door and on each side. At night you must roast the meat and eat it with bitter herbs and bread made without leaven so that it will not rise. You are to be dressed ready to travel. For this night I will go through the land of Egypt and kill every first-born son. When I see the blood on your door frame, I will pass over you and not harm you. And every year you must hold a feast on this day to remember what I have done. For seven days you must not eat any bread made with leaven to make it rise. Every year you must hold a feast for a whole week with bread made without leaven." And so to this day the Jews hold these feasts and all them Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. So Moses told the Israelites what God had said. "No one is to leave their house until morning," he told them. He also told them to ask the Egyptians for gold and silver jewelry and clothes, and the Egyptians gave them whatever they asked for. That evening the Israelites did what God had said to do.

Now about midnight God killed all the first-born sons in Egypt, in every house where there was no blood on the door frame. But no one died in the Israelites' houses where the blood was on the door frame. All over Egypt people woke up to find a dead son and they began to cry. Even the king found that his oldest son was dead. So he sent for Moses and Aaron and said, "Get out of my country, you and your Israelites! Take your animals with you. And pray for me too."

So the Israelite people gathered their belongings and the things the Egyptians had given them. They put unleavened bread dough in their baking pans and started out toward the Red Sea. There were about 600,000 men plus women and children. They took the body of Joseph with them, like he had made them promise they would before he died. And God led them on their way, going before them in a pillar of cloud in the daytime and in a pillar of fire by night. And the cloud led them to the edge of the Red Sea where they set up camp.