Sensible Madness

God, not quite done harping on this whole Passover thing, told Moses that the Israelites must sanctify all firstborn children, both of men and of animals, to God. All of them, God said, belong to me.

And so Moses went out to talk to the Israelites, and repeated much of what God had said to him. He told them that God really couldn't stand leavened bread, and no one was allowed to eat any of it. If anyone complained, they should just think about how God just saved their sorry asses from Egypt and shut the hell up.

Moses further went on to explain the changes to the calendar, specifically that the month they were in at the time would henceforth be called Abib, and would be the first month of the year. If anyone was confused, they could go purchase a new updated calendar at Aaron's Discount Calendar Outlet.

Moses then told the Israelites that God was going to bring them into the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Hivites, and Jebusites (praise Jebus!), and give the land to them. This despite the fact that the land was currently crawling with Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Hivites, and Jebusites. Moses also told everyone that the land they were being given was flowing with milk and honey. In order to keep enthusiasm up, he neglected to mention the frequent famines that made the Israelites want to leave there and go to Egypt in the first place.

Anyway, Moses continued to harp on the whole unleavened bread thing. Basically, if you killed your own mother and also kept yeast in the house during Passover, it would be anyone's guess which one God would take more seriously. To put it simply: Don’t even think about having any yeast in your house, or God is going to be fucking pissed.

Moses then explained what God wanted done with the firstborn: The firstborn of an ass (a donkey, you freaks) should be traded for a lamb, and the lamb should be killed, because God much preferred lamb meat to ass meat. If a lamb could not be found, it's okay to break the donkey's neck, but be aware that God is going to be less than satisfied with the meal.

Human children, on the other hand, don't need to be sacrificed. However, they do need to be told at least once a year why Passover is so important, and why their dad is sacrificing perfectly good lamb to God all the time.

At any rate, when God led the Israelites out of Egypt, he decided not to take the shortcut through the land of the Philistines, because the Philistines were currently kicking the crap out of each other. God, being concerned that walking through a war might make the Israelites change their mind and go back to the relative safety of Egypt, decided to take the long way through the wilderness around the Red Sea.

Moses took the bones of Joseph with him, Joseph being the guy who was responsible for getting them into this whole mess in the first place by inviting them all to Egypt, and began wandering around the desert with the Israelites. Feeling guilty about neglecting to get Moses a GPS before they left, God appeared before the entire Israelite group as a pillar of cloud (during the day) or a pillar of fire (at night) in order to lead them where they were supposed to go.