Exodus 7:1-13

1So Adonai said to Moses, “See, I have set you as God to Pharaoh, and Aaron your brother will be your prophet.

2You are to speak all that I command you and Aaron your brother is to speak to Pharaoh, so that he will let Bnei-Yisrael go out of his land.

3Yet I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and multiply My signs and wonders in the land of Egypt.

4But Pharaoh will not listen to you, so I will lay My hand upon Egypt, and bring forth My armies, My people Bnei-Yisrael, out of the land of Egypt by great judgments.

5The Egyptians will know that I am Adonai, when I stretch out My hand against Egypt, and bring out Bnei-Yisrael from among them.”

6So Moses and Aaron did as Adonai commanded them.

7Moses was eighty years old and Aaron eighty-three years old when they spoke to Pharaoh.

8Adonai told Moses and Aaron,

9“When Pharaoh speaks to you saying, ‘Prove yourselves with a miracle,’ then you are to say to Aaron, ‘Take your staff and cast it down before Pharaoh, so that it may become a serpent.’”

10So Moses and Aaron went in to Pharaoh and did as Adonai had commanded. Aaron threw down his staff before Pharaoh and before his servants, and it became a serpent.

11Then Pharaoh called for the wise men and the sorcerers, and they too, the magicians of Egypt, did the same with their secret arts.

12For each man threw down his staff, and they became serpents. But Aaron’s staff swallowed up their staffs.

13Yet Pharaoh’s heart was hardened. So he did not listen to them— just as Adonai had said.