14 The Brothers.

 

journey, because after the Egyptian children
were dead, Pharaoh would be in a hurry to
let them go.

“ This feast was to be called the ‘ Passover,’
because the Egyptians should die, but the
Israelites should be passed over, when they
had sprinkled their doors with blood. Every
year they were to repeat this feast afterwards,
in remembrance of their deliverance out of
the land of Egypt.

“The Israelites did just as Moses com-
manded them, and they knew that God spoke
by him; they killed the lambs, and sprinkled
their doors, and feasted in haste, when that
terrible night came.

“And at midnight we read, ‘The Lord
smote all the first-born in the land of Egypt,
from the first-born of Pharaoh that sat on the
throne to the first-born of the captive that
was in the dungeon, and all the first-born of
cattle. And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he
and all his servants, and all the Egyptians,
and there was a great cry in Egypt, for there
was not a house where there was not one
dead.’

“Then in his fright the king sent for Moses
and Aaron, and told them to leave the country
at once, and take all the people of Israel with