- 1
- Then the LORD said to Moses, "See, I have made you like God to Pharaoh,
- and your brother Aaron will be your prophet.
- 2
- You are to say everything I command you,
- and your brother Aaron is to tell Pharaoh to let the Israelites go out of his country.
- 3
- But I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and though I multiply
- my miraculous signs and wonders in Egypt,
- 4
- he will not listen to you. Then I will lay my hand on Egypt and with mighty
- acts of judgment I will bring out my divisions, my people the Israelites.
- 5
- And the Egyptians will know that I am the LORD when I stretch out
- my hand against Egypt and bring the Israelites out of it."
- 6
- Moses and Aaron did just as the LORD commanded them.
- 7
- Moses was eighty years old and Aaron eighty-three when they spoke to Pharaoh.
- 8
- The LORD said to Moses and Aaron,
- 9
- "When Pharaoh says to you, `Perform a miracle,' then say to Aaron,
- `Take your staff and throw it down before Pharaoh,' and it will become a snake."
- 10
- So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and did just as the LORD commanded.
- Aaron threw his staff down in front of Pharaoh and his officials,
- and it became a snake.
- 11
- Pharaoh then summoned wise men and sorcerers,
- and the Egyptian magicians also did the same things by their secret arts:
- 12
- Each one threw down his staff and it became a snake.
- But Aaron's staff swallowed up their staffs.
- 13
- Yet Pharaoh's heart became hard and he would not listen to them,
- just as the LORD had said.
- 14
- Then the LORD said to Moses, "Pharaoh's heart is unyielding;
- he refuses to let the people go.
- 15
- Go to Pharaoh in the morning as he goes out to the water.
- Wait on the bank of the Nile to meet him,
- and take in your hand the staff that was changed into a snake.
- 16
- Then say to him, `The LORD, the God of the Hebrews,
- has sent me to say to you: Let my people go, so that they may
- worship me in the desert. But until now you have not listened.
- 17
- This is what the LORD says: By this you will know that I am the LORD:
- With the staff that is in my hand I will strike the water of the Nile,
- and it will be changed into blood.
- 18
- The fish in the Nile will die, and the river will stink;
- the Egyptians will not be able to drink its water.'"
- 19
- The LORD said to Moses, "Tell Aaron, `Take your staff and stretch out your hand
- over the waters of Egypt--over the streams and canals, over the ponds
- and all the reservoirs'--and they will turn to blood. Blood will be
- everywhere in Egypt, even in the wooden buckets and stone jars."
- 20
- Moses and Aaron did just as the LORD had commanded.
- He raised his staff in the presence of Pharaoh and his officials and struck
- the water of the Nile, and all the water was changed into blood.
- 21
- The fish in the Nile died, and the river smelled so bad that
- the Egyptians could not drink its water. Blood was everywhere in Egypt.
- 22
- But the Egyptian magicians did the same things by their secret arts,
- and Pharaoh's heart became hard; he would not listen to Moses and Aaron,
- just as the LORD had said.
- 23
- Instead, he turned and went into his palace, and did not take even this to heart.
- 24
- And all the Egyptians dug along the Nile to get drinking water,
- because they could not drink the water of the river.
- 25
- Seven days passed after the LORD struck the Nile.