law to endure ever among them, which
the children of Israel obeyed and accomplished, it was so that at
midnight our Lord smote and slew every first-begotten son throughout all
the land of Egypt, beginning at the first son and heir of Pharaoh unto
the son of the caitiff that lay in prison, and also the first-begotten
of the beasts. Pharaoh arose in the night and all his servants and all
Egypt, and there was a great clamor and sorrowful noise and cry, for
there was not a house in all Egypt but there lay therein one that was
dead. Then Pharaoh did do call Moses and Aaron in the night, and said:
Arise ye and go your way from my people, ye and the children of Israel,
as ye say ye will, take your sheep and beasts with you like as ye
desired, and at your departing bless ye me. The Egyptians constrained
the children to depart and go their way hastily, saying: We all shall
die. The children of Israel took their meal, and put it on their
shoulders as they were commanded, and borrowed vessels of silver and of
gold, and much clothing. Our Lord gave to them such favor tofore the
Egyptians that the Egyptians lent to them all that they desired, and
they spoiled and robbed Egypt.

And so the children of Israel departed, nigh the number of six hundred
thousand footmen, besides women and children which were innumerable, and
an huge great multitude of beasts of divers kinds. The time that the
children of Israel had dwelt in Egypt was four hundred years. And so
they departed out of Egypt, and went not the right way by the
Philistines, but our Lord led them by the way of desert which is by the
Red Sea. And the children descended out of Egypt armed. Moses took with
him the bones of Joseph for he charged them so to do when he died. They
went in the extreme ends of the wilderness, and our Lord went tofore
them by day in a column of a cloud, and by night in a column of fire and
was their leader and duke; the pillar of the cloud failed never by day,
nor the pillar of fire by night tofore the people. Our Lord said to
Moses, I shall make his heart so hard that he shall follow and pursue
you, and I shall be glorified in Pharaoh, and in all his host, the
Egyptians shall know that I am Lord. And anon it was told to Pharaoh
that the children of Israel fled, and anon his heart was changed, and
also the heart of his servants, and said: What shall we do, shall we
suffer the children to depart and no more to serve us? Forthwith he took
his chariot and al