Exodus 7:1-19

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.

14Then Adonai said to Moses, “Pharaoh’s heart is stubborn; he refuses to let the people go.

15Go to Pharaoh in the morning as he is coming out to the water, and stand ready to meet him by the bank of the Nile. Take the staff that was transformed into a serpent in your hand.

16You are to say to him: Adonai, God of the Hebrews, has sent me to you, saying, ‘Let My people go, so they may serve Me in the wilderness,’ and behold, you have not listened.

17This is what Adonai says: ‘By this you will know that I am Adonai. Behold, I will strike the waters that are in the river with the staff that is in my hand, and they will be turned to blood.

18The fish that are in the river will die, the river will become foul, and the Egyptians will hate to drink water from the Nile.”’

19Adonai said to Moses, “Say to Aaron: Take your staff and stretch out your hand over the waters of Egypt, over their rivers, over their streams, over their pools and over all their ponds, so that they become blood. There will be blood throughout all the land of Egypt, even in wooden and stone containers.”