1. The LORD answered Moses, “See, I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron will be your prophet.
2. You are to speak all that I command you, and your brother Aaron must tell Pharaoh to let the Israelites go out of his land.
3. But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and though I multiply My signs and wonders in the land of Egypt,
4. Pharaoh will not listen to you. So I will lay My hand upon Egypt and bring out My divisions—My people the Israelites—from the land of Egypt by great acts of judgment.
5. And the Egyptians will know that I am the LORD when I stretch out My hand against Egypt and bring the Israelites out from among them.”
6. So Moses and Aaron did just as the LORD had commanded them.
7. Moses was eighty years old and Aaron eighty-three when they spoke to Pharaoh.
Aaron’s Staff
8. The LORD said to Moses and Aaron,
9. “When Pharaoh says to you, ‘Perform a miracle,’ you are to say to Aaron, ‘Take your staff and throw it down before Pharaoh,’ and it will become a serpent.”
10. Then Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and did just as the LORD had commanded. Aaron threw his staff down before Pharaoh and his officials, and it became a serpent.
11. But Pharaoh called the wise men and sorcerers and magicians of Egypt, and they also did the same things by their magic arts.
12. Each one threw down his staff, and it became a serpent. But Aaron’s staff swallowed up their staffs.
13. Yet Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, and he did not listen to them, just as the LORD had said.
The First Plague: Blood
14. Then the LORD said to Moses, “Pharaoh’s heart is unyielding; he refuses to let the people go.
15. Go to Pharaoh in the morning as he goes out to the water. Wait on the bank of the Nile to meet him, and take in your hand the staff that was changed into a snake.
16. Then say to him, ‘The LORD, the God of the Hebrews, has sent me to say to you: Let My people go, so that they may worship Me in the wilderness. But so far, you have not listened.
17. This is what the LORD says: By this you will know that I am the LORD: Behold, I will strike the waters of the Nile with the staff in my hand, and they will turn to blood.
18. The fish in the Nile will die, the river will stink, and the Egyptians will be unable to drink its water.’”
19. 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 reservoirs—and they will turn to blood. There will be blood throughout the land of Egypt, even in vessels of wood and stone.’”
20. Moses and Aaron did just as the LORD had commanded; Aaron raised his staff and struck the waters of the Nile in the sight of Pharaoh and his officials, and all the water in the Nile was turned to blood.
21. The fish in the Nile died, and the river smelled so bad that the Egyptians could not drink its water. There was blood throughout the land of Egypt.
22. But the magicians of Egypt did the same things by their magic arts, and so Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, and he would not listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the LORD had said.
23. Instead, Pharaoh turned and went into his palace, and he did not take even this to heart.
24. Meanwhile, all the Egyptians dug along the Nile for water to drink, because they could not drink the water of the river.
25. And seven days passed after the LORD had struck the Nile.