Deuteronomy 16:1-8
The redeemed people must remember the Lord's deliverance through commanded worship, eating the bread of affliction before Him and letting redemption define their calendar, their gathering, and their daily obedience.
1 Observe the month of Abib, and keep the Passover to Yahweh your God; for in the month of Abib Yahweh your God brought you out of Egypt by night.
2 You shall sacrifice the Passover to Yahweh your God, of the flock and the herd, in the place which Yahweh shall choose to cause his name to dwell there.
3 You shall eat no leavened bread with it. You shall eat unleavened bread with it seven days, even the bread of affliction (for you came out of the land of Egypt in haste) that you may remember the day when you came out of the land of Egypt all the days of your life.
4 No yeast shall be seen with you in all your borders seven days; neither shall any of the meat, which you sacrifice the first day at evening, remain all night until the morning.
5 You may not sacrifice the Passover within any of your gates which Yahweh your God gives you;
6 but at the place which Yahweh your God shall choose to cause his name to dwell in, there you shall sacrifice the Passover at evening, at the going down of the sun, at the season that you came out of Egypt.
7 You shall roast and eat it in the place which Yahweh your God chooses. In the morning you shall return to your tents.
8 Six days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the seventh day shall be a solemn assembly to Yahweh your God. You shall do no work.
The redeemed people must remember the LORD's deliverance through commanded worship, eating the bread of affliction before Him and letting redemption define their calendar, their gathering, and their daily obedience.
Moses commands Israel to observe the Passover in the month of Aviv at the LORD's chosen place, remembering that the LORD brought them out of Egypt by night. The passage binds annual worship, sacrificial remembrance, unleavened bread, the urgency and affliction of redemption, and ordered return to ordinary life into a covenant calendar that keeps deliverance from becoming forgotten history.
Deuteronomy addresses Israel on the plains of Moab before entry into Canaan. The Passover command is not the first institution of the feast, but Moses' covenant-renewal instruction for how redeemed Israel must observe it once living under the LORD's chosen worship order in the land.
Three Feasts and Just Judges: The Covenant Calendar and the Justice That Guards It
The covenant community's year is shaped by three pilgrimages to the chosen place — Passover, Weeks, and Booths — each grounding Israel's joy in the memory of Egypt and the acknowledgment that all abundance comes from the LORD, and each explicitly including the Levite, sojourner, fatherless, and widow in the celebration; and the justice system that closes the chapter ensures that the community's worship order is matched by a justice order of impartial judges who do not twist justice, show partiality, or take bribes — for the covenant's festivals and the covenant's justice are inseparable expressions of the same holiness.