Exodus 7

1Yahweh said to Moses, “See, I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron will be your prophet.

2You are to say everything I command you, and your brother Aaron is to tell Pharaoh to let the Israelites go out of his land.

3But I will make Pharaoh’s heart obstinate, and I will multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt.

4Pharaoh will not listen to you. Then I will lay my hand on Egypt and bring my divisions, my people the Israelites, out of the land of Egypt with great acts of judgment.

5The Egyptians will know that I am Yahweh when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring the Israelites out from among them.”

6Moses and Aaron did so; they did just as Yahweh commanded them.

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

8Yahweh said to Moses and Aaron,

9“When Pharaoh says to you, ‘Perform a miracle,’ then say to Aaron, ‘Take your staff and throw it down in front of Pharaoh,’ and it will become a serpent.”

10So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and did just as Yahweh had commanded. Aaron threw his staff down in front of Pharaoh and his officials, and it became a serpent.

11Then Pharaoh summoned the wise men and the sorcerers, and the magicians of Egypt also did the same thing by their secret arts.

12Each one threw down his staff, and they became serpents. But Aaron’s staff swallowed up their staffs.

13Yet Pharaoh’s heart was hard, and he did not listen to them, just as Yahweh had said.

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

15Go to Pharaoh in the morning, just as he is going out to the water. Stand on the bank of the Nile to meet him, and take in your hand the staff that turned into a snake.

16Say to him, ‘Yahweh, the God of the Hebrews, sent me to you to say, “Let my people go, so that they may worship me in the wilderness.” But so far you have not listened.

17This is what Yahweh says: “By this you will know that I am Yahweh: I will strike the water of the Nile with the staff that is in my hand, and it will be turned into blood.

18The fish in the Nile will die, the Nile will stink, and the Egyptians will not be able to bear drinking water from the Nile.”’”

19Yahweh said to Moses, “Say to Aaron, ‘Take your staff and stretch out your hand over the waters of Egypt—over their rivers, their canals, their ponds, and all their pools of water—so that they become blood.’ There will be blood throughout the land of Egypt, even in vessels of wood and of stone.”

20Moses and Aaron did just as Yahweh had commanded. He raised the staff and struck the water of the Nile in the sight of Pharaoh and his officials, and all the water in the Nile was turned into blood.

21The fish in the Nile died, and the Nile stank so that the Egyptians could not drink water from the Nile. There was blood throughout the land of Egypt.

22But the magicians of Egypt did the same thing by their secret arts. So Pharaoh’s heart was hard, and he did not listen to them, just as Yahweh had said.

23Pharaoh turned and went into his palace, and he did not take even this to heart.

24All the Egyptians dug around the Nile for water to drink, because they could not drink the water of the Nile.

25Seven days passed after Yahweh struck the Nile.