Study Desk

“Don’t continue to supply the people with straw for making bricks, as before. They must go and gather straw for themselves.

But require the same quota of bricks from them as they were making before; do not reduce it. For they are slackers—that is why they are crying out, ‘Let us go and sacrifice to our God.’

Impose heavier work on the men. Then they will be occupied with it and not pay attention to deceptive words.”

When they left Pharaoh, they confronted Moses and Aaron, who stood waiting to meet them.

“May the Lord take note of you and judge,” they said to them, “because you have made us reek to Pharaoh and his officials—putting a sword in their hand to kill us!”

Moses told this to the Israelites, but they did not listen to him because of their broken spirit and hard labor.

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

Moses was eighty years old and Aaron eighty-three when they spoke to Pharaoh.

But then Pharaoh called the wise men and sorcerers—the magicians of Egypt, and they also did the same thing by their occult practices.

So the Lord said to Moses, “Tell Aaron: Take your staff and stretch out your hand over the waters of Egypt—over their rivers, canals, ponds, and all their water reservoirs—and they will become blood. There will be blood throughout the land of Egypt, even in wooden and stone containers.”

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go in to Pharaoh and tell him: This is what the Lord says: Let my people go, so that they may worship me.

The Nile will swarm with frogs; they will come up and go into your palace, into your bedroom and on your bed, into the houses of your officials and your people, and into your ovens and kneading bowls.

Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said, “Appeal to the Lord to remove the frogs from me and my people. Then I will let the people go and they can sacrifice to the Lord.”

They piled them in countless heaps, and there was a terrible odor in the land.

And they did this. Aaron stretched out his hand with his staff, and when he struck the dust of the land, gnats were on people and animals. All the dust of the land became gnats throughout the land of Egypt.

The magicians tried to produce gnats using their occult practices, but they could not. The gnats remained on people and animals.

The Lord said to Moses, “Get up early in the morning and present yourself to Pharaoh when you see him going out to the water. Tell him: This is what the Lord says: Let my people go, so that they may worship me.

But if you will not let my people go, then I will send swarms of flies against you, your officials, your people, and your houses. The Egyptians’ houses will swarm with flies, and so will the land where they live.

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go in to Pharaoh and say to him: This is what the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, says: Let my people go, so that they may worship me.

So they took furnace soot and stood before Pharaoh. Moses threw it toward heaven, and it became festering boils on people and animals.