Exodus 4–12

CHAPTER 4

If They Will Not Believe These Signs

¹Then Moses answered and said, “What if they will not believe me and will not ^alisten to my voice? For they may say, ‘^bYahweh has not appeared to you.’”

²And Yahweh said to him, “What is this in your hand?” And he said, “^aA staff.”

³Then He said, “Throw it on the ground.” So he threw it on the ground, and ^ait became a serpent; and Moses fled from it.

⁴And Yahweh said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand and grasp it by its tail”—so he stretched out his hand and took hold of it, and it became a staff in his ¹hand—

⁵“that ^athey may believe that ^bYahweh, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you.”

⁶And Yahweh furthermore said to him, “Now put your hand into your bosom.” So he put his hand into his bosom; then he took it out, and behold, his hand was ^aleprous like snow.

⁷Then He said, “Return your hand into your bosom.” So he returned his hand into his bosom, and when he took it out of his bosom, behold, ^ait returned to being like the rest of his flesh.

⁸“And so it will be, if they will not believe you or listen to the ¹witness of the first sign, they may believe the ²witness of ³this last sign.

⁹“But if it will be that they will not believe even these two signs and that they will not listen to your voice, then you shall take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry land; and the water which you take from the Nile ^awill become blood on the dry land.”

Aaron to Speak for Moses

¹⁰Then Moses said to Yahweh, “Please, Lord, ^aI have never been a man of words, neither ¹recently nor in time past, nor since You have spoken to Your slave; for I am one with a ²hard mouth and a ³hard tongue.”

¹¹And Yahweh said to him, “Who has made man’s mouth? Or ^awho makes him mute or deaf, or seeing or blind? Is it not I, Yahweh?

¹²“So now, go, and ^aI, even I, will be with your mouth and will ^binstruct you what you shall speak.”

¹³But he said, “Please, Lord, ¹send now the message by whomever You will.”

¹⁴Then the anger of Yahweh burned against Moses, and He said, “Is there not your brother Aaron the Levite? I know that ¹he can certainly speak. And moreover, behold, ^ahe is coming out to meet you. And he will see you and be glad in his heart.

¹⁵“And you are to speak to him and ^aput the words in his mouth; and I, even I, will be with your mouth and with his mouth, and I will instruct ¹you in what you shall do.

¹⁶“Moreover, ^ahe shall speak for you to the people; and he will become as a mouth for you, and you will become as God to him.

¹⁷“And you shall take in your hand ^athis staff, ^bwith which you shall do the signs.”

Moses Returns to Egypt

¹⁸Then Moses went and returned to ¹Jethro ^ahis father-in-law and said to him, “Please, let me go, that I may return to my brothers who are in Egypt and see if they are still alive.” And Jethro said to Moses, “Go in peace.”

¹⁹And Yahweh said to Moses in Midian, “Go, return to Egypt, for ^aall the men who were seeking your life are dead.”

²⁰So Moses took his wife and his ^asons and mounted them on a donkey and returned to the land of Egypt. Moses also took the ^bstaff of God in his hand.

²¹And Yahweh said to Moses, “When you go to return to Egypt, see to it that all ^athe miraculous wonders which I have put in your hand, that you do them before Pharaoh; but as for Me, ^bI will ¹harden his heart with strength so that he will not let the people go.

²²“Then you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says Yahweh, “^aIsrael is My son, My firstborn.

²³“So I said to you, ‘^aLet My son go that he may serve Me’; but you have refused to let him go. Behold, ^bI will kill your son, your firstborn.” ’ ”

²⁴Now it happened at the lodging place on the way that Yahweh encountered him and ^asought to put him to death.

²⁵Then Zipporah took ^aa flint and cut off her son’s foreskin and touched ¹his feet with it, and she said, “You are indeed a bridegroom of blood to me!”

²⁶So He let him alone. At that time she said, “You are a bridegroom of blood” with reference to the circumcision.

^27aThen Yahweh said to Aaron, “Go to meet Moses in the wilderness.” So he went and encountered him at the ^bmountain of God and kissed him.

^28aAnd Moses told Aaron all the words of Yahweh with which He had sent him, and ^ball the signs that He had commanded him to do.

²⁹Then Moses and Aaron went and ^agathered all the elders of the sons of Israel;

³⁰and ^aAaron spoke all the words which Yahweh had spoken to Moses. He then did the ^bsigns in the sight of the people.

³¹So ^athe people believed; and they heard that Yahweh ^1bcared about the sons of Israel and that He had seen their affliction. So ^cthey bowed low and worshiped.

CHAPTER 5

Pharaoh Will Not Let the People Go

¹And afterward Moses and Aaron came and said to Pharaoh, “^aThus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, ‘^bLet My people go that they may celebrate a feast to Me in the wilderness.’”

²But Pharaoh said, “^aWho is Yahweh that I should listen to His voice to let Israel go? I do not know Yahweh, and also, ^bI will not let Israel go.”

³Then they said, “^aThe God of the Hebrews has met with us. Please, let us go a three days’ journey into the wilderness that we may sacrifice to Yahweh our God, lest He confront us with pestilence or with the sword.”

⁴But the king of Egypt said to them, “Moses and Aaron, why do you ¹draw the people away from their ²work? Get back to your ^3ahard labors!”

⁵And Pharaoh said, “Look, ^athe people of the land are now many, and you would have them cease from their hard labors!”

⁶So on that day Pharaoh commanded ^athe taskmasters over the people and their ^bforemen, saying,

⁷“You are no longer to give the people straw to make brick as previously; let them go and gather straw for themselves.

⁸“But the quota of bricks which they were making previously, you shall set upon them; you are not to reduce any of it. Because they are ^alazy, therefore they are crying out, ‘¹Let us go and sacrifice to our God.’

⁹“Let their slavery be hard on the men, and let them work at it so that they will have no regard for false words.”

¹⁰So ^athe taskmasters of the people and their foremen went out and spoke to the people, saying, “Thus says Pharaoh, ‘I am not going to give you any straw.

¹¹‘You go and get straw for yourselves wherever you can find it, but no amount of your slave labor will be reduced.’”

¹²So the people scattered through all the land of Egypt to gather stubble for straw.

¹³And the taskmasters were pressing them, saying, “Complete your ¹work quota, ²the daily amount, just as when there was straw.”

¹⁴Moreover, ^athe foremen of the sons of Israel, whom Pharaoh’s taskmasters had set over them, ^bwere beaten ¹and were asked, “Why have you not completed your required amount either yesterday or today in making brick as previously?”

¹⁵Then the foremen of the sons of Israel came and cried out to Pharaoh, saying, “Why do you deal this way with your slaves?

¹⁶“There is no straw given to your slaves, yet they keep saying to us, ‘Make bricks!’ And behold, your slaves are being beaten; but it is the ¹sin of your own people.”

¹⁷But he said, “You are ^alazy—lazy! Therefore you say, ‘Let us go and sacrifice to Yahweh.’

¹⁸“So now, go and labor; but straw will not be given to you, yet you must deliver the quota of bricks.”

¹⁹Then the foremen of the sons of Israel saw that they were in trouble ¹because they were told, “You must not reduce ²your daily amount of bricks.”

²⁰When they left Pharaoh’s presence, they confronted Moses and Aaron, ¹standing there to meet them.

^21aAnd they said to them, “^bMay Yahweh look upon you and judge, for you have ^cmade ¹us a foul smell in Pharaoh’s sight and in the sight of his servants, to put a sword in their hand to kill us.”

²²Then Moses returned to Yahweh and said, “^aO Lord, why have You brought harm to this people? Why did You ever send me?

²³“Ever since I came to Pharaoh to speak in Your name, he has done harm to this people, ^aand You have not delivered Your people at all.”

CHAPTER 6

Yahweh Remembers His Covenant

¹Then Yahweh said to Moses, “Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh; for ^aby a strong hand he will let them go, and by a strong hand he will drive them out of his land.”

²God spoke further to Moses and said to him, “I am ^aYahweh;

³and I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as ^1aGod Almighty, but by ^bMy name, Yahweh, I was not known to them.

⁴“And I also established ^aMy covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the ¹land in which they sojourned.

⁵“Furthermore I have ^aheard the groaning of the sons of Israel because the Egyptians are holding them in slavery, and I have remembered My covenant.

⁶“Say, therefore, to the sons of Israel, ‘^aI am Yahweh, and ^bI will bring you out from under the hard labors of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from their slavery. I will also ^credeem you with ^dan outstretched arm and with great judgments.

⁷‘Then I will take you ^1afor My people, and ^bI will be ²your God; and ^cyou shall know that I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out from under the hard labors of the Egyptians.

⁸‘And I will bring you to the land which ^aI ¹swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, and ^bI will give it to you for a possession; ^cI am Yahweh.’”

⁹So Moses spoke thus to the sons of Israel, but they did not listen to Moses on ^aaccount of their weakness of spirit and ¹hard slavery.

¹⁰Now Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying,

¹¹“^aCome, ¹tell Pharaoh king of Egypt ²to let the sons of Israel go out of his land.”

¹²But Moses spoke before Yahweh, saying, “Behold, the sons of Israel have not listened to me; ^ahow then will Pharaoh listen to me, for I am of ^buncircumcised lips?”

¹³Then Yahweh spoke to Moses and to Aaron and gave them a command for the sons of Israel and for Pharaoh king of Egypt, to bring the sons of Israel out of the land of Egypt.

The Heads of Israel’s Households

¹⁴These are the heads of their fathers’ households. ^aThe sons of Reuben, Israel’s firstborn: Hanoch and Pallu, Hezron and Carmi; these are the families of Reuben.

¹⁵The ^asons of Simeon: Jemuel and Jamin…