Exodus 7–8

7The Lord said to Moses, “I have made you like God to the king of Egypt, and your brother Aaron will be like a prophet for you. ²Tell Aaron your brother everything that I command you, and let him tell the king of Egypt to let the Israelites leave his country. ³But I will make the king stubborn. I will do many miracles in Egypt, ⁴but he will still refuse to listen. So then I will punish Egypt terribly, and I will lead my divisions, my people the Israelites, out of that land. ⁵I will punish Egypt with my power, and I will bring the Israelites out of that land. Then they will know I am the Lord.”

⁶Moses and Aaron did just as the Lord had commanded them. ⁷Moses was eighty years old and Aaron was eighty-three when they spoke to the king.

Aaron’s Walking Stick Becomes a Snake

⁸The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, ⁹“Moses, when the king asks you to do a miracle, tell Aaron to throw his walking stick down in front of the king, and it will become a snake.”

¹⁰So Moses and Aaron went to the king as the Lord had commanded. Aaron threw his walking stick down in front of the king and his officers, and it became a snake.

¹¹So the king called in his wise men and his magicians, and with their tricks the Egyptian magicians were able to do the same thing. ¹²They threw their walking sticks on the ground, and their sticks became snakes. But Aaron’s stick swallowed theirs. ¹³Still the king was stubborn and refused to listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the Lord had said.

The Water Becomes Blood

¹⁴Then the Lord said to Moses, “The king is being stubborn and refuses to let the people go. ¹⁵In the morning the king will go out to the Nile River. Go meet him by the edge of the river, and take with you the walking stick that became a snake. ¹⁶Tell him: The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, sent me to you. He said, ‘Let my people go worship me in the desert.’ Until now you have not listened. ¹⁷This is what the Lord says: ‘This is how you will know that I am the Lord. I will strike the water of the Nile River with this stick in my hand, and the water will change into blood. ¹⁸Then the fish in the Nile will die, and the river will begin to stink. The Egyptians will not be able to drink the water from the Nile.’ ”

¹⁹The Lord said to Moses, “Tell Aaron: ‘Take the walking stick in your hand and stretch your hand over the rivers, canals, ponds, and pools in Egypt.’ The water will become blood everywhere in Egypt, both in wooden buckets and in stone jars.”

²⁰So Moses and Aaron did just as the Lord had commanded. In front of the king and his officers, Aaron raised his walking stick and struck the water in the Nile River. So all the water in the Nile changed into blood. ²¹The fish in the Nile died, and the river began to stink, so the Egyptians could not drink water from it. Blood was everywhere in the land of Egypt.

²²Using their tricks, the magicians of Egypt did the same thing. So the king was stubborn and refused to listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the Lord had said. ²³The king turned and went into his palace and ignored what Moses and Aaron had done. ²⁴The Egyptians could not drink the water from the Nile, so all of them dug along the bank of the river, looking for water to drink.

The Frogs

²⁵Seven days passed after the Lord changed the Nile River.

8Then the Lord told Moses, “Go to the king of Egypt and tell him, ‘This is what the Lord says: Let my people go to worship me. ²If you refuse, I will punish Egypt with frogs. ³The Nile River will be filled with frogs. They will come up into your palace, into your bedroom, on your bed, into the houses of your officers, and onto your people. They will come into your ovens and into your baking pans. ⁴The frogs will jump all over you, your people, and your officers.’ ”

⁵Then the Lord said to Moses, “Tell Aaron to hold his walking stick in his hand over the rivers, canals, and ponds. Make frogs come up out of the water onto the land of Egypt.”

⁶So Aaron held his hand over all the waters of Egypt, and the frogs came up out of the water and covered the land of Egypt. ⁷The magicians used their tricks to do the same thing, so even more frogs came up onto the land of Egypt.

⁸The king called for Moses and Aaron and said, “Pray to the Lord to take the frogs away from me and my people. I will let your people go to offer sacrifices to the Lord.”

⁹Moses said to the king, “Please set the time when I should pray for you, your people, and your officers. Then the frogs will leave you and your houses and will remain only in the Nile.”

¹⁰The king answered, “Tomorrow.”

Moses said, “What you want will happen. By this you will know that there is no one like the Lord our God. ¹¹The frogs will leave you, your houses, your officers, and your people. They will remain only in the Nile.”

¹²After Moses and Aaron left the king, Moses asked the Lord about the frogs he had sent to the king. ¹³And the Lord did as Moses asked. The frogs died in the houses, in the yards, and in the fields. ¹⁴The Egyptians put them in piles, and the whole country began to stink. ¹⁵But when the king saw that they were free of the frogs, he became stubborn again. He did not listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the Lord had said.

The Gnats

¹⁶Then the Lord said to Moses, “Tell Aaron to raise his walking stick and strike the dust on the ground. Then everywhere in Egypt the dust will change into gnats.” ¹⁷They did this, and when Aaron raised the walking stick that was in his hand and struck the dust on the ground, everywhere in Egypt the dust changed into gnats. The gnats got on the people and animals. ¹⁸Using their tricks, the magicians tried to do the same thing, but they could not make the dust change into gnats. The gnats remained on the people and animals. ¹⁹So the magicians told the king that the power of God had done this. But the king was stubborn and refused to listen to them, just as the Lord had said.

The Flies

²⁰The Lord told Moses, “Get up early in the morning, and meet the king of Egypt as he goes out to the river. Tell him, ‘This is what the Lord says: Let my people go so they can worship me. ²¹If you don’t let them go, I will send swarms of flies into your houses. The flies will be on you, your officers, and your people. The houses of Egypt will be full of flies, and they will be all over the ground, too. ²²But I will not treat the Israelites the same as the Egyptian people. There will not be any flies in the land of Goshen, where my people live. By this you will know that I, the Lord, am in this land. ²³I will treat my people differently from your people. This miracle will happen tomorrow.’ ”

²⁴So the Lord did as he had said, and great swarms of flies came into the king’s palace and his officers’ houses. All over Egypt flies were ruining the land. ²⁵The king called for Moses and Aaron and told them, “Offer sacrifices to your God here in this country.”

²⁶But Moses said, “It wouldn’t be right to do that, because the Egyptians hate the sacrifices we offer to the Lord our God. If they see us offering sacrifices they hate, they will throw stones at us and kill us. ²⁷Let us make a three-day journey into the desert. We must offer sacrifices to the Lord our God there, as the Lord told us to do.”

²⁸The king said, “I will let you go so that you may offer sacrifices to the Lord your God in the desert, but you must not go very far away. Now go and pray for me.”

²⁹Moses said, “I will leave and pray to the Lord, and he will take the flies away from you, your officers, and your people tomorrow. But do not try to trick us again. Do not stop the people from going to offer sacrifices to the Lord.”

³⁰So Moses left the king and prayed to the Lord, ³¹and the Lord did as he asked. He removed the flies from the king, his officers, and his people so that not one fly was left. ³²But the king became stubborn again and did not let the people go.