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Signs for Moses

Moses answered, "What if they do not believe me or listen to me and say, 'The Lord did not appear to you?'?" Then the Lord said to him. "What is that in your hand?" "A staff," he replied. The lord said, "Throw it on the ground." Moses threw it on the ground and it became a snake, and he ran it from it. then the Lord said to him, "Reach out your hand and take it by the tail." So Moses reached out and took hold of the snake and it turned back into a staff in his hand. "This' said the Lord, "is so that they may believe that the Lord of their fathers-the Gpd of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob-has appeared to you."

Then the Lord said, "Put your hand inside your cloak." So Moses put his hand into his cloak, and when he took it out, it was leprous, like snow. "Now put it back into your cloak," he said. So Moses put his hand back into his cloak, and when he took it out, it was restored, like the rest of his flesh.

Then the Lord said, "If they do not believe you or pay attention to the first miraculous sign, they may believe the second, But if they do not believe these two signs or listen to you, take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry ground. The water you take from the river will become blood and ground." Moses said the Lord, "O, Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue."

The Lord said to him, "Who gave man his mouth? Who make him deaf or mute? Who gives him sights or makes him blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say." But Moses said "O, Lord please send someone else to do it." Then Lord's anger burned against Moses and he said, "What about your brother, Aron the Levite? I know he can speak well. He is already on his way to meet you, and his heart will be glad when he see you. You shall speak to him and put words in his mouth; I will help both of you speak and will teach you what to do. He will speak to the people for you, and it will be as if he were your mouth and as if you were Got to him. But take this staff in your hand so you can perform miraculous signs with it."

Moses return to Egypt

Then Moses went back to Jethro his father-in-law and said to him, "Let me go back to my own people in Egypt to see if any of them are still alive." Jethro said, "Go I wish you well." Now the Lord had said to Moses in Midian, "Go back to Egypt, for all the man who wanted to kill you are dead." So Moses took his wife and sons, put them on a donkey and start back to Egypt. And he took the staff of God in his hand.

The Lord said to Moses, "When you return to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders I have given you the power to do. But I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go. Then say to Pharaoh, 'This is what the Lord says: Israel is my first born son, and I told you, "Let my son go, so he may worship me." But you refused to let him go; so I will kill your first born son."

At a lodging place on the way Lord met Moses and was about to kill him. But Zipporah took a flint knife, cut off her son's foreskin and touched Moses feet with it. "Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me," she said. So the Lord let him alone.(At that time she said "bridegroom of blood," referring to circumcision.)

The Lord said to Aron "Go into the desert to meet Moses." So he met Moses at the mountain of God and kissed him. Then Moses told Aron everything the Lord had sent him to say, and also about all the miraculous signs he had commanded him ti perform. Moses and Aron brought together all the elders of the Israelites, and Aron told them everything the Lord had said to Moses. He also perform the signs before the people, and they believed. And when they heard that the Lord was concerned about them and had seen their misery, they bowed down worship.