¹³Then the Lord said to Moses, “Get up early in the morning and go to the king of Egypt. Tell him, ‘This is what the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, says: Let my people go to worship me. ¹⁴If you don’t, this time I will punish you, your officers, and your people, with all my power. Then you will know there is no one in the whole land like me. ¹⁵By now I could have used my power and caused a terrible disease that would have destroyed you and your people from the earth. ¹⁶But I have let you live for this reason: to show you my power so that my name will be talked about in all the earth. ¹⁷You are still against my people and do not want to let them go. ¹⁸So at this time tomorrow, I will send a terrible hailstorm, the worst in Egypt since it became a nation. ¹⁹Now send for your animals and whatever you have in the fields, and bring them into a safe place. The hail will fall on every person or animal that is still in the fields. If they have not been brought in, they will die.’ ” ²⁰Some of the king’s officers respected the word of the Lord and hurried to bring their slaves and animals inside. ²¹But others ignored the Lord’s message and left their slaves and animals in the fields.

²²The Lord told Moses, “Raise your hand toward the sky. Then the hail will start falling in all the land of Egypt. It will fall on people, animals, and on everything that grows in the fields of Egypt.” ²³When Moses raised his walking stick toward the sky, the Lord sent thunder and hail, and lightning flashed down to the earth. So he caused hail to fall upon the land of Egypt. ²⁴There was hail, and lightning flashed as it hailed—the worst hailstorm in Egypt since it had become a nation. ²⁵The hail destroyed all the people and animals that were in the fields in all the land of Egypt. It also destroyed everything that grew in the fields and broke all the trees in the fields. ²⁶The only place it did not hail was in the land of Goshen, where the Israelites lived.

²⁷The king sent for Moses and Aaron and told them, “This time I have sinned. The Lord is in the right, and I and my people are in the wrong. ²⁸Pray to the Lord. We have had enough of God’s thunder and hail. I will let you go; you do not have to stay here any longer.”

²⁹Moses told the king, “When I leave the city, I will raise my hands to the Lord in prayer, and the thunder and hail will stop. Then you will know that the earth belongs to the Lord. ³⁰But I know that you and your officers do not yet fear the Lord God.”

³¹The flax was in bloom, and the barley had ripened, so these crops were destroyed. ³²But both wheat crops ripen later, so they were not destroyed.

³³Moses left the king and went outside the city. He raised his hands to the Lord, and the thunder and hail stopped. The rain also stopped falling to the ground. ³⁴When the king saw that the rain, hail, and thunder had stopped, he sinned again, and he and his officers became stubborn. ³⁵So the king became stubborn and refused to let the Israelites go, just as the Lord had said through Moses.

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