And these are the names of the sons of Israel who had come into Egypt; with Jacob had they come, each with his household:

Anil the sons of Israel were fruitful, and they will multiply abundantly, and they will increase, and will become strong with might exceedingly; and the land will be filled with them.

He said to his people, “Behold, the people of the sons of Israel are too many and too mighty for us [they greatly outnumber us].

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 the LORD said, "I have surely seen the trouble of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry, which they have of their taskmasters. For I know their sorrow,

He replied, "Surely I will be with you, and this will be the sign to you that I have sent you: When you bring the people out of Egypt, you and they will serve God on this mountain."

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.”

And the LORD said unto Moses in Midian, "Return again into Egypt for they are dead which went about to kill thee."

Now on the way, at a place where they stopped for the night, the Lord met Moses and sought to kill him.

And Moses will go, and Aaron, and they will gather together all the old men of the sons of Israel.

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.”

And the urgers on of the people will go forth, and the scribes, and they will speak to the people, saying, Thus said Pharaoh, I gave you not straw.

And the taskmasters of the sons of Israel, whom Pharaoh's taskmasters had set over them, were beaten. And they demanded, Why have you not completed your task in making brick, both yesterday and today, as you did before?

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 let myself be seen by Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as God, the Ruler of all; but they had no knowledge of my name Yahweh.

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

Therefore, tell the Israelites, 'I am the Lord. I will bring you out from your enslavement to the Egyptians, I will rescue you from the hard labor they impose, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments.

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

They having spoken to Pharaoh king of Egypt, to bring forth the sons of Israel out of Egypt; this Moses and Aaron.

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.

And Moses will go, and Aaron, to Pharaoh, and they will do thus as Jehovah commanded: and Aaron will cast down his rod before Pharaoh, and before his servants, and it will be into a dragon.

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

And they will cast down each their rod, and they will be for dragons: and Aaron's rod swallowed their rods.

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.

Thus said Jehovah, In this thou shalt know that I am Jehovah: Behold me smiting with the rod which is in my hand upon the waters that in the river, and they were turned into blood.

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.

And the sacred scribes will do so with their charms; and they will bring up frogs upon the land of Egypt

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.”

And Moses will say to Pharaoh, Be honored over me: at what time shall I pray for thee and for thy servants and for thy people, to cut off the frogs from thee and from thy houses, only in the river shall they remain?

And the frogs shall turn away from thee and from thy houses and from thy servants and from thy people; only in the river shall they remain.

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.

then shall they become fine dust, over all the land of Egypt, - and shall become on man and on beast, a burning sore, breaking out in pustules in all the land of Egypt.

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.

And now send forth to secure thy cattle, and all which is to thee in the field: every man and quadruped which shall be found in the field, and shall not be gathered together to the house, and the hail shall come down upon them, and they shall die.

and they that regarded not the word of the LORD, left their servants and their beasts in the field.

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?”

And he will turn back Moses and Aaron to Pharaoh, and he will say to them, Go, serve Jehovah your God: who and who are they going.

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.

And Jehovah said to Moses, Stretch out thy hand over the land of Egypt for the locusts, that they may come up over the land of Egypt, and eat every herb of the land all that the hail hath left.

And the locusts went up over all the land of Egypt, and rested in all the borders of Egypt, very grievous; before them there were no such locusts as they, neither after them will be such.

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.

And the LORD said unto Moses, "Stretch out thy hand unto heaven, and let there be darkness upon the land of Egypt: even that they may feel the darkness."

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.

So our cattle will have to go with us, not one may be kept back; for they are needed for the worship of the Lord our God; we have no knowledge what offering we have to give till we come to the place.

Speak now in the ears of the people; they shall ask each from his friend, and a woman from her friend, vessels of silver and vessels of gold.

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.

And it shall be to you for a preservation till the fourteenth day of this month; and they shall slaughter it, all the convocation of the assembly of Israel, between the two evenings.

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.

And they said, This the sacrifice of the passing over to Jehovah, who passed over the houses of the sons of Israel in Egypt in his striking the Egyptians, and he delivered our houses. And the people will bow down and will worship.

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 people took the dough before it was soured which they had in store, and bound it in cloths, and put it upon their shoulders.

And the sons of Israel did as Moses spake: and they will ask of the Egyptians, silver vessels and gold vessels,' and garments.

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.

And the dwelling of the sons of Israel which they dwelt in Egypt, was thirty years and four hundred years.

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

"Sanctify unto me all the firstborn that open all manner matrices among the children of Israel, as well of men as of beasts: for they are mine."

then thou shalt appoint unto the LORD all that openeth the matrix, and all the firstborn among the beasts which thou hast if they be males.