Exodus 10–12

The Locusts

10The Lord said to Moses, “Go to the king of Egypt. I have made him and his officers stubborn so I could show them my powerful miracles. ²I also did this so you could tell your children and your grandchildren how I was hard on the Egyptians. Tell them about the miracles I did among them so that all of you will know that I am the Lord.”

³So Moses and Aaron went to the king and told him, “This is what the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, says: ‘How long will you refuse to be sorry for what you have done? Let my people go to worship me. ⁴If you refuse to let my people go, tomorrow I will bring locusts into your country. ⁵They will cover the land so that no one will be able to see the ground. They will eat anything that was left from the hailstorm and the leaves from every tree growing in the field. ⁶They will fill your palaces and all your officers’ houses, as well as the houses of all the Egyptians. There will be more locusts than your fathers or ancestors have ever seen—more than there have been since people began living in Egypt.’ ” Then Moses turned and walked away from the king.

⁷The king’s officers asked him, “How long will this man make trouble for us? Let the Israelites go to worship the Lord their God. Don’t you know that Egypt is ruined?”

⁸So Moses and Aaron were brought back to the king. He said to them, “Go and worship the Lord your God. But tell me, just who is going?”

⁹Moses answered, “We will go with our young and old people, our sons and daughters, and our flocks and herds, because we are going to have a feast to honor the Lord.”

¹⁰The king said to them, “The Lord will really have to be with you if ever I let you and all of your children leave Egypt. See, you are planning something evil! ¹¹No! Only the men may go and worship the Lord, which is what you have been asking for.” Then the king forced Moses and Aaron out of his palace.

¹²The Lord told Moses, “Raise your hand over the land of Egypt, and the locusts will come. They will spread all over the land of Egypt and will eat all the plants the hail did not destroy.”

¹³So Moses raised his walking stick over the land of Egypt, and the Lord caused a strong wind to blow from the east. It blew across the land all that day and night, and when morning came, the east wind had brought the locusts. ¹⁴Swarms of locusts covered all the land of Egypt and settled everywhere. There were more locusts than ever before or after, ¹⁵and they covered the whole land so that it was black. They ate everything that was left after the hail—every plant in the field and all the fruit on the trees. Nothing green was left on any tree or plant anywhere in Egypt.

¹⁶The king quickly called for Moses and Aaron. He said, “I have sinned against the Lord your God and against you. ¹⁷Now forgive my sin this time. Pray to the Lord your God, and ask him to stop this punishment that kills.”

¹⁸Moses left the king and prayed to the Lord. ¹⁹So the Lord changed the wind. He made a very strong wind blow from the west, and it blew the locusts away into the Red Sea. Not one locust was left anywhere in Egypt. ²⁰But the Lord caused the king to be stubborn again, and he did not let the Israelites go.

The Darkness

²¹Then the Lord told Moses, “Raise your hand toward the sky, and darkness will cover the land of Egypt. It will be so dark you will be able to feel it.” ²²Moses raised his hand toward the sky, and total darkness was everywhere in Egypt for three days. ²³No one could see anyone else, and no one could go anywhere for three days. But the Israelites had light where they lived.

²⁴Again the king of Egypt called for Moses. He said, “All of you may go and worship the Lord. You may take your women and children with you, but you must leave your flocks and herds here.”

²⁵Moses said, “You must let us have animals to use as sacrifices and burnt offerings, because we have to offer them to the Lord our God. ²⁶So we must take our animals with us; not a hoof will be left behind. We have to use some of the animals to worship the Lord our God. We won’t know exactly what we will need to worship the Lord until we get there.”

²⁷But the Lord made the king stubborn again, so he refused to let them go. ²⁸Then he told Moses, “Get out of here, and don’t come again! The next time you see me, you will die.”

²⁹Then Moses told the king, “I’ll do what you say. I will not come to see you again.”

The Death of the Firstborn

11Now the Lord had told Moses, “I have one more way to punish the king and the people of Egypt. After this, the king will send all of you away from Egypt. When he does, he will force you to leave completely. ²Tell the men and women of Israel to ask their neighbors for things made of silver and gold.” ³The Lord had caused the Egyptians to respect the Israelites, and both the king’s officers and the Egyptian people considered Moses to be a great man.

⁴So Moses said to the king, “This is what the Lord says: ‘About midnight tonight I will go through all Egypt. ⁵Every firstborn son in the land of Egypt will die—from the firstborn son of the king, who sits on his throne, to the firstborn of the slave girl grinding grain. Also the firstborn farm animals will die. ⁶There will be loud outcries everywhere in Egypt, worse than any time before or after this. ⁷But not even a dog will bark at the Israelites or their animals.’ Then you will know that the Lord treats Israel differently from Egypt. ⁸All your officers will come to me. They will bow facedown to the ground before me and say, ‘Leave and take all your people with you.’ After that, I will leave.” Then Moses very angrily left the king.

⁹The Lord had told Moses, “The king will not listen to you and Aaron so that I may do many miracles in the land of Egypt.” ¹⁰Moses and Aaron did all these great miracles in front of the king. But the Lord made him stubborn, and the king would not let the Israelites leave his country.

The First Passover

12The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt: ²“This month will be the beginning of months, the first month of the year for you. ³Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each man must get one lamb for the people in his house. ⁴If there are not enough people in his house to eat a whole lamb, he must share it with his closest neighbor, considering the number of people. There must be enough lamb for everyone to eat. ⁵The lamb must be a one-year-old male that has nothing wrong with it. This animal can be either a young sheep or a young goat. ⁶Take care of the animals until the fourteenth day of the month. On that day all the people of the community of Israel will kill them in the evening before dark. ⁷The people must take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the doorframes of the houses where they eat the lambs. ⁸On this night they must roast the lamb over a fire. They must eat it with bitter herbs and bread made without yeast. ⁹Do not eat the lamb raw or boiled in water. Roast the whole lamb over a fire—with its head, legs, and inner organs. ¹⁰You must not leave any of it until morning, but if any of it is left over until morning, you must burn it with fire.

¹¹“This is the way you must eat it: You must be fully dressed as if you were going on a trip. You must have your sandals on and your walking stick in your hand. You must eat it in a hurry; this is the Lord’s Passover.

¹²“That night I will go through the land of Egypt and kill all the firstborn animals and people in the land of Egypt. I will also punish all the gods of Egypt. I am the Lord. ¹³But the blood will be a sign on the houses where you are. When I see the blood, I will pass over you. Nothing terrible will hurt you when I punish the land of Egypt.

¹⁴“You are always to remember this day and celebrate it with a feast to the Lord. Your descendants are to honor the Lord with this feast from now on. ¹⁵For this feast you must eat bread made without yeast for seven days. On the first day, you are to remove all the yeast from your houses. No one should eat any yeast for the full seven days of the feast, or that person will be cut off from Israel. ¹⁶You are to have holy meetings on the first and last days of the feast. You must not do any work on these days; the only work you may do is to prepare your meals. ¹⁷You must celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread, because on this very day I brought your divisions of people out of Egypt. So all of your descendants must celebrate this day. This is a law that will last from now on. ¹⁸In the first month of the year you are to eat bread made without yeast, from the evening of the fourteenth day until the evening of the twenty-first day. ¹⁹For seven days there must not be any yeast in your houses. Anybody who eats yeast during this time, either an Israelite or non-Israelite, must be cut off from the community of Israel. ²⁰During this feast you must not eat anything made with yeast. You must eat only bread made without yeast wherever you live.”

²¹Then Moses called all the elders of Israel together and told them, “Get the animals for your families and kill the lamb for the Passover. ²²Take a branch of the hyssop plant, dip it into the bowl filled with blood, and then wipe the blood on the sides and tops of the doorframes. No one may leave that house until morning. ²³When the Lord goes through Egypt to kill the Egyptians, he will see the blood on the sides and tops of the doorframes, and he will pass over that house. He will not let the one who brings death come into your houses and kill you.

²⁴“You must keep this command as a law for you and your descendants from now on. ²⁵Do this when you go to the land the Lord has promised to give you. ²⁶When your children ask you, ‘Why are we doing these things?’ ²⁷you will say, ‘This is the Passover sacrifice to honor the Lord. When we were in Egypt, the Lord passed over the houses of Israel, and when he killed the Egyptians, he saved our homes.’ ” Then the people bowed down and worshiped the Lord. ^…