Exodus4

¹Then Moses said, “What if they will not believe me or listen to what I say? For they may say, ‘The Lord has not appeared to you.’”

²The Lord said to him, “What is that in your hand?” And he said, “A staff.”

³Then He said, “Throw it on the ground.” So he threw it on the ground, and it turned into a serpent; and Moses fled from it.

⁴But the Lord said to Moses, “Reach out with your hand and grasp it by its tail”—so he reached out with his hand and caught it, and it turned into a staff in his hand—

⁵“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.”

⁶The Lord furthermore said to him, “Now put your hand inside the fold of your robe.” So he put his hand inside the fold, and when he took it out, behold, his hand was leprous like snow.

⁷Then He said, “Put your hand inside the fold of your robe again.” So he put his hand into the fold again, and when he took it out of the fold, behold, it was restored like the rest of his flesh.

⁸“So if they will not believe you nor pay attention to the evidence of the first sign, they may believe the evidence of the last sign.

⁹But if they will not believe even these two signs nor pay attention to what you say, then you shall take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry ground; and the water which you take from the Nile will turn into blood on the dry ground.”

¹⁰Then Moses said to the Lord, “Please, Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither recently nor in time past, nor since You have spoken to Your servant; for I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.”

¹¹But the Lord said to him, “Who has made the human mouth? Or who makes anyone unable to speak or deaf, or able to see or blind? Is it not I, the Lord?

¹²Now then go, and I Myself will be with your mouth, and instruct you in what you are to say.”

¹³But he said, “Please, Lord, now send the message by whomever You will.”

¹⁴Then the anger of the Lord burned against Moses, and He said, “Is there not your brother Aaron the Levite? I know that he speaks fluently. And moreover, behold, he is coming out to meet you; when he sees you, he will be overjoyed.

¹⁵So you are to speak to him and put the words in his mouth; and I Myself will be with your mouth and his mouth, and I will instruct you in what you are to do.

¹⁶He shall speak for you to the people; and he will be as a mouth for you and you will be as God to him.

¹⁷And you shall take in your hand this staff, with which you shall perform the signs.”

¹⁸Then Moses departed and returned to his father-in-law Jethro, and said to him, “Please, let me go, that I may return to my brothers who are in Egypt, and see if they are still alive.” And Jethro said to Moses, “Go in peace.”

¹⁹Now the Lord said to Moses in Midian, “Go back to Egypt, for all the men who were seeking your life are dead.”

²⁰So Moses took his wife and his sons and mounted them on a donkey, and returned to the land of Egypt. Moses also took the staff of God in his hand.

²¹And the Lord said to Moses, “When you go back to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders which I have put in your power; but I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go.

²²Then you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘This is what the Lord says: “Israel is My son, My firstborn.

²³So I said to you, ‘Let My son go so that he may serve Me’; but you have refused to let him go. Behold, I am going to kill your son, your firstborn.”’”

²⁴But it came about at the overnight encampment on the way, that the Lord met Moses, and sought to put him to death.

²⁵So Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son’s foreskin and threw it at Moses’ feet; and she said, “You are indeed a groom of blood to me!”

²⁶So He left him alone. At that time she said, “You are a groom of blood”—because of the circumcision.

²⁷Now the Lord said to Aaron, “Go to meet Moses in the wilderness.” So he went and met him at the mountain of God and kissed him.

²⁸Moses told Aaron all the words of the Lord with which He had sent him, and all the signs that He had commanded him to do.

²⁹Then Moses and Aaron went and assembled all the elders of the sons of Israel;

³⁰and Aaron spoke all the words which the Lord had spoken to Moses. He then performed the signs in the sight of the people.

³¹So the people believed; and when they heard that the Lord was concerned about the sons of Israel and that He had seen their affliction, they bowed low and worshiped.