Moses’ Staff
1. Then Moses answered, “What if they refuse to believe me or listen to my voice? For they may say, ‘The LORD has not appeared to you.’”
2. “What is that in your hand?” asked the LORD. “A staff,” Moses replied.
3. The LORD said, “Throw it on the ground.” When Moses threw it on the ground, it became a snake, and he ran from it.
4. But the LORD told Moses, “Stretch out your hand and grab it by the tail.” So Moses reached out and caught the snake, and it turned back into a staff in his hand.
5. “This is so that they may believe that the LORD, the God of their fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob—has appeared to you.”
Moses’ Hand
6. Furthermore, the LORD said to Moses, “Now put your hand inside your cloak.” So Moses put his hand inside his cloak, and when he took it out, the skin was leprous, as white as snow.
7. “Put your hand back inside your cloak,” said the LORD. So Moses put his hand back inside his cloak, and when he took it out, it was restored like the rest of his skin.
8. “If they will not believe you or heed the witness of the first sign, they may believe the witness of the second.
9. And if they refuse even these two signs and will not listen to your voice, 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.”
The Appointment of Aaron
10. But Moses replied, “Please, Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since You have spoken to Your servant, for I am slow of speech and tongue.”
11. The LORD said to him, “Who gave man his mouth? Or who makes the mute or the deaf, the sighted or the blind? Is it not I, the LORD?
12. Now go! I will help you as you speak, and I will teach you what to say.”
13. But Moses replied, “Please, Lord, send someone else.”
14. Then the anger of the LORD burned against Moses, and He said, “Is there not your brother Aaron the Levite? I know that he can speak well. And he is now on his way to meet you, and he will be glad to see you.
15. You shall speak to him and put words in his mouth; I will help both of you as you speak and will teach you what to do.
16. He will speak to the people for you; he will be your spokesman, and it will be as if you were God to him.
17. But take this staff in your hand so that you can perform signs with it.”
Moses Leaves for Egypt
18. Then Moses went back to his father-in-law Jethro and said to him, “Please let me return to my brothers in Egypt to see if they are still alive.” And Jethro said to Moses, “Go in peace.”
19. Now in Midian the LORD had said to Moses, “Go back to Egypt, for all the men who were seeking your life are dead.”
20. So Moses took his wife and sons, put them on a donkey, and headed back to the land of Egypt. And Moses took the staff of God in his hand.
21. And the LORD said to Moses, “When you return to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders that I have put within your power. But I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go.
22. Then you are to say to Pharaoh, ‘This is what the LORD says: Israel is My firstborn son,
23. and I told you to let My son go so that he may worship Me. But you have refused to let him go, so I will kill your firstborn son.’”
24. On the journey, at a place where they spent the night, the LORD met Moses and sought to kill him.
25. But Zipporah took a flint knife, cut off her son’s foreskin, and touched Moses’ feet with it. “Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me,” she said.
26. So the LORD let him alone. To her, He said, “Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to Me because of the circumcision.”
The People Believe Moses and Aaron
27. Meanwhile, the LORD had said to Aaron, “Go and meet Moses in the wilderness.” So he went and met Moses at the mountain of God and kissed him.
28. And Moses told Aaron everything the LORD had sent him to say, as well as all the signs He had commanded him to perform.
29. Then Moses and Aaron went and assembled all the elders of the Israelites.
30. Aaron repeated everything that the LORD had said to Moses and performed the signs before the people,
31. and they believed. And when they heard that the LORD had attended to the Israelites and had seen their affliction, they bowed down and worshiped.