Dual Panel1The LORD said to Moses, “Go in to Pharaoh. I have made him and his courtiers obdurate, so that I may show these signs among them,
2and so that you can tell your children and grandchildren the story: how I toyed with the Egyptians, and what signs I showed among them. Thus you will know that I am the LORD.”
3Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said to him, “The LORD the God of the Hebrews has said: How long will you refuse to humble yourself before me? Let my people go in order to worship me.
4If you refuse to let them go, tomorrow I am going to bring locusts into your country.
5They will cover the face of the land so that it cannot be seen. They will eat up the last remnant left you by the hail. They will devour every tree that grows in your countryside.
6Your houses and your courtiers” houses, every house in Egypt, will be full of them; your fathers never saw the like, nor their fathers before them; such a thing has not happened from their time until now.” With that he turned and left Pharaoh's presence.
7Pharaoh's courtiers said to him, “How long must we be caught in this man's toils? Let their menfolk go and worship the LORD their God. Do you not know by now that Egypt is ruined?”
8So Moses and Aaron were brought back to Pharaoh, and he said to them, “Go, worship the LORD your God; but who exactly is to go?”
9“Everyone,” said Moses, “young and old, boys and girls, sheep and cattle; for we have to keep the LORD's pilgrim-feast.”
10Pharaoh replied, “The LORD be with you if I let you and your dependants go! You have some sinister purpose in mind.
11No, your menfolk may go and worship the LORD, for that is what you were asking for.” And they were driven from Pharaoh's presence.
12The LORD said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over Egypt so that locusts may come and invade the land and devour all the vegetation in it, whatever the hail has left.”
13When Moses stretched out his staff over the land of Egypt, the LORD sent a wind roaring in from the east all that day and all that night; and when morning came the east wind had brought the locusts.
14They invaded the whole land of Egypt, and settled on all its territory in swarms so dense that the like of them had never been seen before, nor ever will be again.
15They covered the surface of the whole land till it was black with them; they devoured all the vegetation and all the fruit of the trees that the hail had spared; there was no green left on tree or plant throughout all Egypt.
16Pharaoh hastily summoned Moses and Aaron. “I have sinned against the LORD your God and against you,” he said.
17“Forgive my sin, I pray, just this once, and intercede with the LORD your God to remove this deadly plague from me.”
18When Moses left Pharaoh and interceded with the LORD,
19the wind was changed by the LORD into a westerly gale, which carried the locusts away and swept them into the Red Sea. Not one locust was left within the borders of Egypt.
20But the LORD made Pharaoh obstinate, and he would not let the Israelites go.
21Then the LORD said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand towards the sky so that over the land of Egypt there may be a darkness so dense that it can be felt.”
22Moses stretched out his hand towards the sky, and for three days pitch darkness covered the whole land of Egypt.
23People could not see one another, and for three days no one stirred from where he was. But where the Israelites were living there was no darkness.
24Pharaoh summoned Moses. “Go, worship the LORD,” he said. “Your dependants may go with you; but your flocks and herds must remain here.”
25But Moses said, “No, you yourself must supply us with animals for sacrifice and whole-offering to the LORD our God;
26and our own livestock must go with us too -- not a hoof must be left behind. We may need animals from our own flocks to worship the LORD our God; we ourselves cannot tell until we are there how we are to worship the LORD.”
27The LORD made Pharaoh obstinate, and he refused to let them go.
28“Be off! Leave me!” he said to Moses. “Mind you do not see my face again, for on the day you do, you die.”
29“You are right,” said Moses; “I shall not see your face again.”