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Rh passover, and the priests sprinkled the blood, which they received of their hand, and the Levites flayed them. And they removed the burnt offerings, that they might give them according to the divisions of the fathers' houses of the children of the people, to offer unto the, as it is written in the book of Moses. And so did they with the oxen. And they roasted the passover with fire according to the ordinance: and the holy offerings sod they in pots, and in caldrons, and in pans, and carried them quickly to all the children of the people. And afterward they prepared for themselves, and for the priests; because the priests the sons of Aaron were busied in offering the burnt offerings and the fat until night: therefore the Levites prepared for themselves, and for the priests the sons of Aaron. And the singers the sons of Asaph were in their place, according to the commandment of David, and Asaph, and Heman, and Jeduthun the king's seer; and the porters were at every gate: they needed not to depart from their service, for their brethren the Levites prepared for them. So all the service of the was prepared the same day, to keep the passover, and to offer burnt offerings upon the altar of the, according to the commandment of king Josiah. And the children of Israel that were present kept the passover at that time, and the feast of unleavened bread seven

11. sprinkled] Cp. xxix. 22, note.

the Levites flayed] Cp. xxix. 34.

13. the ordinance] Ex. xii. 9.

and the holy offerings] The bullocks mentioned in vv. 7, 8, 9. Possibly these were slain not on the Passover day itself, but on the days which immediately followed. The practice of later times, however, seems to have admitted the sacrifice of oxen as a thank offering along with the Passover lambs (see Mishnah, Pesachim, vi. 3, 4); and it is possible that in the Chronicler's time oxen were thus killed and eaten on the Passover day, although they were, as this verse indicates, prepared differently from the Passover lambs.

14. the fat] Cp. vii. 7, note; xxix. 35.

15. the singers] Cp. 1 Chr. xxv. 1 ff.

Heman] But 1 Esdras has Zacharias, a reading which finds some support in 1 Chr. xv. 18, xvi. 5.

16. the same day] Lit. "on that day," i.e. the fourteenth of Nisan.