Study Desk

“Throw it on the ground,” he said. So Moses threw it on the ground, it became a snake, and he ran from it.

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.

“This will take place,” he continued, “so that they will believe that the Lord, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you.”

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.

“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.

So Moses took his wife and sons, put them on a donkey, and returned to the land of Egypt. And Moses took God’s staff in his hand.

The Lord instructed Moses, “When you go back to Egypt, make sure you do before Pharaoh all the wonders that I have put within your power. But I will harden his heart so that he won’t let the people go.

I told you: Let my son go so that he may worship me, but you refused to let him go. Look, I am about to kill your firstborn son!”

So Zipporah took a flint, cut off her son’s foreskin, threw it at Moses’s feet, and said, “You are a bridegroom of blood to me!”

So he let him alone. At that time she said, “You are a bridegroom of blood,” referring to the circumcision.

Now the Lord had said to Aaron, “Go and meet Moses in the wilderness.” So he went and met him at the mountain of God and kissed him.

Later, Moses and Aaron went in and said to Pharaoh, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: Let my people go, so that they may hold a festival for me in the wilderness.”

They answered, “The God of the Hebrews has met with us. Please let us go on a three-day trip into the wilderness so that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God, or else he may strike us with plague or sword.”

Pharaoh also said, “Look, the people of the land are so numerous, and you would stop them from their labor.”

So the overseers and foremen of the people went out and said to them, “This is what Pharaoh says: ‘I am not giving you straw.

So the people scattered throughout the land of Egypt to gather stubble for straw.

So the Israelite foremen went in and cried for help to Pharaoh: “Why are you treating your servants this way?

So Moses went back to the Lord and asked, “Lord, why have you caused trouble for this people? And why did you ever send me?

You must say whatever I command you; then Aaron your brother must declare it to Pharaoh so that he will let the Israelites go from his land.

So Moses and Aaron did this; they did just as the Lord commanded them.