Study Desk

he said to Moses: Go to the palace and tell the king of Egypt that I order him to let my people go, so they can worship me.

Warn the king that the Nile will be full of frogs, and from there they will spread into the royal palace, including the king's bedroom and even his bed. Frogs will enter the homes of his officials and will find their way into ovens and into the bowls of bread dough.

Moses, now command Aaron to hold his stick over the water. Then frogs will come from all rivers, canals, and ponds in Egypt, and they will cover the land.

They obeyed, and when Aaron struck the ground with the stick, gnats started swarming on people and animals. In fact, every speck of dust in Egypt turned into a gnat.

When the magicians tried to use their secret powers to do this, they failed, and gnats stayed on people and animals.

The Lord said to Moses: Early tomorrow morning, while the king is on his way to the river, go and say to him, "The Lord commands you to let his people go, so they can worship him.

"That's impossible!" Moses replied. "Any sacrifices we offer to the Lord our God would disgust the Egyptians, and they would stone us to death.

So they took a few handfuls of ashes and went to the king. Moses threw them into the air, and sores immediately broke out on the Egyptians and their animals.

The Lord told Moses to get up early the next morning and say to the king: The Lord God of the Hebrews commands you to let his people go, so they can worship him!

You had better give orders for every person and every animal in Egypt to take shelter. If they don't, they will die.

Some of the king's officials were frightened by what the Lord had said, and they hurried off to make sure their slaves and animals were safe.

Meanwhile, the flax and barley crops had been destroyed by the storm because they were ready to ripen.

But the wheat crops ripen later, and they were not damaged.

Moses and Aaron went to the king and told him that the Lord God of the Hebrews had said: How long will you stubbornly refuse to obey? Release my people so they can worship me.

The ground was black with locusts, and they ate everything left on the trees and in the fields. Nothing green remained in Egypt—not a tree or a plant.

If any family is too small to eat the whole animal, they must share it with their next-door neighbors. Choose either a sheep or a goat, but it must be a one-year-old male that has nothing wrong with it. And it must be large enough for everyone to have some of the meat.

Then they left and did what Moses and Aaron had told them to do.

The Egyptians did everything they could to get the Israelites to leave their country fast. They said, "Please hurry and leave. If you don't, we will all be dead."

So the Israelites quickly made some bread dough and put it in pans. But they did not mix any yeast in the dough to make it rise. They wrapped cloth around the pans and carried them on their shoulders.

The Israelites had already done what Moses had told them to do. They had gone to their Egyptian neighbors and asked for gold and silver and for clothes.