Exodus 4
1 Moses answered, “But they won’t believe me or listen to me. They’ll say, ‘The LORD did not appear to you.’”
2 The LORD said to him, “What is that in your hand?” He answered, “A staff.”
3 The LORD said, “Throw it on the ground.” He threw it on the ground, and the staff turned into a snake. Moses ran away from it.
4 The LORD said to Moses, “Reach out your hand and grab it by the tail.” He reached out his hand and took hold of it, and it turned into a staff in his hand.
5 “So they will believe that the LORD, the God of their ancestors, has appeared to you—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”
6 The LORD said to him again, “Put your hand inside your cloak.” He put his hand inside his cloak, and when he brought it out, his hand was leprous, white as snow.
7 He said, “Put your hand back inside your cloak.” He put his hand back inside his cloak, and when he brought it out, it had become like the rest of his body.
8 “If they don’t believe you or listen to the first sign, they will believe the second sign.
9 If they don’t believe even these two signs or listen to you, take some water from the Nile and pour it on dry ground. The water you take from the Nile will turn to blood on the dry ground.”
10 Moses said to the LORD, “Please, Lord, I’m not a man of words—not yesterday, not the day before, and not since you began speaking to your servant. I’m slow of speech and tongue.”
11 The LORD said to him, “Who gave human beings a mouth? Who makes anyone mute or deaf, seeing or blind? Isn’t it I, the LORD?
12 Now go. I will be with your mouth and teach you what to say.”
13 He answered, “Please, Lord, send someone else—whoever you choose.”
14 Then the LORD’s anger burned against Moses, and he said, “Isn’t Aaron your brother, the Levite? I know he speaks well. Look, he is coming out to meet you. When he sees you, he’ll be glad in his heart.
15 You will speak to him and put the words in his mouth. I will be with your mouth and his, and I will teach you what you must do.
16 He will speak to the people for you. He will be your mouth, and you will be like God to him.
17 Take this staff in your hand; with it you will perform the signs.”
18 Moses went back to Jethro, his father-in-law, and said to him, “Please let me go back to my brothers in Egypt and see whether they are still alive.” Jethro said to Moses, “Go in peace.”
19 The LORD said to Moses in Midian, “Go back to Egypt, because all the men who were trying to take your life have died.”
20 Moses took his wife and sons, put them on a donkey, and returned to the land of Egypt. Moses carried the staff of God in his hand.
21 The LORD said to Moses, “When you return to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders I have put in your hand. But I will make his heart stubborn, and he will not let the people go.
22 “Then say to Pharaoh, ‘This is what the LORD says: “Israel is my son, my firstborn.
23 I told you, ‘Let my son go so he may serve me.’ But you refused to let him go. Look, I am going to kill your son, your firstborn.”’”
24 On the way, at a place where they stopped for the night, the LORD met him and sought to kill him.
25 Zipporah took a sharp stone, cut off her son’s foreskin, touched his feet with it, and said, “You are a bridegroom of blood to me.”
26 So he let him go. Then she said, “bridegroom of blood,” because of the circumcision.
27 The LORD said to Aaron, “Go into the wilderness to meet Moses.” He went, met him at the mountain of God, and kissed him.
28 Moses told Aaron all the words the LORD had sent him to say, and all the signs he had commanded him to perform.
29 Moses and Aaron went and gathered all the elders of the Israelites.
30 Aaron spoke all the words the LORD had spoken to Moses, and he performed the signs before the people.
31 The people believed. When they heard that the LORD had cared for the Israelites and had seen their suffering, they bowed their heads and worshiped.
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