Let us deal shrewdly with them; otherwise they will multiply further, and if war breaks out, they may join our enemies, fight against us, and leave the country.”

So the Egyptians assigned taskmasters over the Israelites to oppress them with forced labor. They built Pithom and Rameses as supply cities for Pharaoh.

But the more they oppressed them, the more they multiplied and spread so that the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites.

They worked the Israelites ruthlessly

and made their lives bitter with difficult labor in brick and mortar and in all kinds of fieldwork. They ruthlessly imposed all this work on them.

“When you help the Hebrew women give birth, observe them as they deliver. If the child is a son, kill him, but if it’s a daughter, she may live.”

The Hebrew midwives, however, feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt had told them; they let the boys live.

The midwives said to Pharaoh, “The Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are vigorous and give birth before a midwife can get to them.”

Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters. They came to draw water and filled the troughs to water their father’s flock.

When they returned to their father Reuel he asked, “Why have you come back so quickly today?”

They answered, “An Egyptian rescued us from the shepherds. He even drew water for us and watered the flock.”

After a long time, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned because of their difficult labor, and they cried out; and their cry for help ascended to God because of the difficult labor.

Then Moses asked God, “If I go to the Israelites and say to them: The God of your fathers has sent me to you, and they ask me, ‘What is His name?’ what should I tell them?”

They will listen to what you say. Then you, along with the elders of Israel, must go to the king of Egypt and say to him: Yahweh, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us. Now please let us go on a three-day trip into the wilderness so that we may sacrifice to Yahweh our God.

Then Moses answered, “What if they won’t believe me and will not obey me but say, ‘The Lord did not appear to you’?”

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

“If they will not believe you and will not respond to the evidence of the first sign, they may believe the evidence of the second sign.

And if they don’t believe even these two signs or listen to what you say, take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry ground. The water you take from the Nile will become blood on the ground.”

Then Moses went back to his father-in-law Jethro and said to him, “Please let me return to my relatives in Egypt and see if they are still living.”

Jethro said to Moses, “Go in peace.”

The people believed, and when they heard that the Lord had paid attention to them and that He had seen their misery, they bowed down and worshiped.

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

Then 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 Yahweh our God, or else He may strike us with plague or sword.”

“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.”

No straw has been given to your servants, yet they say to us, ‘Make bricks!’ Look, your servants are being beaten, but it is your own people who are at fault.”

The Israelite foremen saw that they were in trouble when they were told, “You cannot reduce your daily quota of bricks.”

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 in front of Pharaoh and his officials—putting a sword in their hand to kill us!”

I also established My covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land they lived in as foreigners.

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 80 years old and Aaron 83 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.

Tell him: Yahweh, the God of the Hebrews, has sent me to tell you: Let My people go, so that they may worship Me in the wilderness, but so far you have not listened.

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.”

All the Egyptians dug around the Nile for water to drink because they could not drink the water from the river.

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go in to Pharaoh and tell him: This is what Yahweh 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, “Ask Yahweh to remove the frogs from me and my people. Then I will let the people go and they can sacrifice to Yahweh.”

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 earth, gnats were on man and beast. All the dust of the earth 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 man and beast.

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 Yahweh 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.

But Moses said, “It would not be right to do that, because what we will sacrifice to the Lord our God is detestable to the Egyptians. If we sacrifice what the Egyptians detest in front of them, won’t they stone us?

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go in to Pharaoh and say to him: This is what Yahweh, 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 man and beast.

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Get up early in the morning and present yourself to Pharaoh. Tell him: This is what Yahweh, the God of the Hebrews says: Let My people go, so that they may worship Me.

but the wheat and the spelt were not destroyed since they are later crops.

So Moses and Aaron went in to Pharaoh and told him, “This is what Yahweh, the God of the Hebrews, says: How long will you refuse to humble yourself before Me? Let My people go, that they may worship Me.

They will cover the surface of the land so that no one will be able to see the land. They will eat the remainder left to you that escaped the hail; they will eat every tree you have growing in the fields.

They will fill your houses, all your officials’ houses, and the houses of all the Egyptians—something your fathers and ancestors never saw since the time they occupied the land until today.” Then he turned and left Pharaoh’s presence.

Pharaoh’s officials asked him, “How long must this man be a snare to us? Let the men go, so that they may worship Yahweh their God. Don’t you realize yet that Egypt is devastated?”

No, only the men may go and worship Yahweh, for that is what you have been asking for.” And they were driven from Pharaoh’s presence.

They covered the surface of the whole land so that the land was black, and they consumed all the plants on the ground and all the fruit on the trees that the hail had left. Nothing green was left on the trees or the plants in the field throughout the land of Egypt.

One person could not see another, and for three days they did not move from where they were. Yet all the Israelites had light where they lived.

Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month they must each select an animal of the flock according to their fathers’ households, one animal per household.

They must take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses where they eat them.

They are to eat the meat that night; they should eat it, roasted over the fire along with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.

Then the Israelites went and did this; they did just as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron.

Now the Egyptians pressured the people in order to send them quickly out of the country, for they said, “We’re all going to die!”

And the Lord gave the people such favor in the Egyptians’ sight that they gave them what they requested. In this way they plundered the Egyptians.

The people baked the dough they had brought out of Egypt into unleavened loaves, since it had no yeast; for when they had been driven out of Egypt they could not delay and had not prepared any provisions for themselves.

Then all the Israelites did this; they did just as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron.

When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them along the road to the land of the Philistines, even though it was nearby; for God said, “The people will change their minds and return to Egypt if they face war.”

They set out from Succoth and camped at Etham on the edge of the wilderness.

The Lord went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to lead them on their way during the day and in a pillar of fire to give them light at night, so that they could travel day or night.

Pharaoh will say of the Israelites: They are wandering around the land in confusion; the wilderness has boxed them in.

The Egyptians—all Pharaoh’s horses and chariots, his horsemen, and his army—chased after them and caught up with them as they camped by the sea beside Pi-hahiroth, in front of Baal-zephon.

They said to Moses: “Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you took us to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt?

I am going to harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they will go in after them, and I will receive glory by means of Pharaoh, all his army, and his chariots and horsemen.

Then Moses and the Israelites sang this song to the Lord. They said:

I will sing to the Lord,
for He is highly exalted;
He has thrown the horse
and its rider into the sea.

The floods covered them;
they sank to the depths like a stone.

But You blew with Your breath,
and the sea covered them.
They sank like lead
in the mighty waters.

When the peoples hear, they will shudder;
anguish will seize the inhabitants of Philistia.

and terror and dread will fall on them.
They will be as still as a stone
because of Your powerful arm
until Your people pass by, Lord,
until the people whom You purchased pass by.

Then Moses led Israel on from the Red Sea, and they went out to the Wilderness of Shur. They journeyed for three days in the wilderness without finding water.

They came to Marah, but they could not drink the water at Marah because it was bitter—that is why it was named Marah.

Then they came to Elim, where there were 12 springs of water and 70 date palms, and they camped there by the waters.

The entire Israelite community departed from Elim and came to the Wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had left the land of Egypt.

Then the Lord said to Moses, “I am going to rain bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. This way I will test them to see whether or not they will follow My instructions.

On the sixth day, when they prepare what they bring in, it will be twice as much as they gather on other days.”

As Aaron was speaking to the entire Israelite community, they turned toward the wilderness, and there in a cloud the Lord’s glory appeared.

When the Israelites saw it, they asked one another, “What is it?” because they didn’t know what it was.

Moses told them, “It is the bread the Lord has given you to eat.

When they measured it by quarts, the person who gathered a lot had no surplus, and the person who gathered a little had no shortage. Each gathered as much as he needed to eat.

But they didn’t listen to Moses; some people left part of it until morning, and it bred worms and smelled. Therefore Moses was angry with them.

They gathered it every morning. Each gathered as much as he needed to eat, but when the sun grew hot, it melted.

On the sixth day they gathered twice as much food, four quarts apiece, and all the leaders of the community came and reported this to Moses.

So they set it aside until morning as Moses commanded, and it didn’t smell or have any maggots in it.

Yet on the seventh day some of the people went out to gather, but they did not find any.

Moses said, “This is what the Lord has commanded: ‘Two quarts of it are to be preserved throughout your generations, so that they may see the bread I fed you in the wilderness when I brought you out of the land of Egypt.’”

The Israelites ate manna for 40 years, until they came to an inhabited land. They ate manna until they reached the border of the land of Canaan.

The entire Israelite community left the Wilderness of Sin, moving from one place to the next according to the Lord’s command. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink.

But the people thirsted there for water, and grumbled against Moses. They said, “Why did you ever bring us out of Egypt to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?”

Then Moses cried out to the Lord, “What should I do with these people? In a little while they will stone me!”

He named the place Massah and Meribah because the Israelites complained, and because they tested the Lord, saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”

When Moses’ hands grew heavy, they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat down on it. Then Aaron and Hur supported his hands, one on one side and one on the other so that his hands remained steady until the sun went down.

So Moses went out to meet his father-in-law, bowed down, and then kissed him. They asked each other how they had been and went into the tent.

The next day Moses sat down to judge the people, and they stood around Moses from morning until evening.