Exodus 4:1–20
4 Moses answered, “What if they won’t believe me and will not obey me but say, ‘The Lord did not appearg to you’?”
2 The Lord asked him, “What is that in your hand?”
“A staff,” he replied.
3 “Throw it on the ground,” he said. So Moses threw it on the ground, it became a snake, and he ran from it. 4 The Lord told Moses, “Stretch out your hand and grab it by the tail.” So he stretched out his hand and caught it, and it became a staff in his hand. 5 “This will take place,” he continued, “so that they will believe that the Lord, the God of their ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you.”h
6 In addition the Lord said to him, “Put your hand inside your cloak.” So he put his hand inside his cloak, and when he took it out, his hand was diseased, resembling snow.A,i 7 “Put your hand back inside your cloak,” he said. So he put his hand back inside his cloak, and when he took it out, it had again become like the rest of his skin.j 8 “If they will not believe you and will not respond to the evidence of the first sign, they may believe the evidence of the second sign. 9 And if they don’t believe even these two signs or listen to what you say, take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry ground. The water you take from the Nile will become blood on the ground.”k
10 But Moses replied to the Lord, “Please, Lord, I have never been eloquent—either in the past or recently or since you have been speaking to your servant—because my mouth and my tongue are sluggish.”B,l
11 The Lord said to him, “Who placed a mouth on humans? Who makes a person mute or deaf, seeing or blind? Is it not I, the Lord?m 12 Now go! I will help you speakC and I will teach you what to say.”n
13 Moses said, “Please, Lord, send someone else.”D
14 Then the Lord’s anger burned against Moses, and he said, “Isn’t Aaron the Levite your brother? I know that he can speak well. And also, he is on his way now to meet you. He will rejoice when he sees you. 15 You will speak with him and tell him what to say.o I will help both you and him to speakE and will teach you both what to do. 16 He will speak to the people for you. He will serve as a mouth for you, and you will serve as God to him. 17 And take this staff in your hand that you will perform the signs with.”p
18 Then Moses went back to his father-in-law, Jethro, and said to him, “Please let me return to my relatives in Egypt and see if they are still living.”
Jethro said to Moses, “Go in peace.”
19 Now in Midian the Lord told Moses, “Return to Egypt, for all the men who wanted to kill you are dead.”q 20 So Moses took his wife and sons, put them on a donkey, and returned to the land of Egypt. And Moses took God’s staffr in his hand.