and the people believed. When they heard that the Lord had attended to the Israelites and that he had seen their affliction, they bowed down close to the ground.

Pharaoh was thinking, “The people of the land are now many, and you are giving them rest from their labor.”

That same day Pharaoh commanded the slave masters and foremen who were over the people:

But you must require of them the same quota of bricks that they were making before. Do not reduce it, for they are slackers. That is why they are crying, ‘Let us go sacrifice to our God.’

The Israelite foremen whom Pharaoh’s slave masters had set over them were beaten and were asked, “Why did you not complete your requirement for brickmaking as in the past – both yesterday and today?”

But Pharaoh replied, “You are slackers! Slackers! That is why you are saying, ‘Let us go sacrifice to the Lord.’

From the time I went to speak to Pharaoh in your name, he has caused trouble for this people, and you have certainly not rescued them!”

Moses told this to the Israelites, but they did not listen to him because of their discouragement and hard labor.

The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron and gave them a charge for the Israelites and Pharaoh king of Egypt to bring the Israelites out of the land of Egypt.

When the Lord spoke to Moses in the land of Egypt,

You are to speak everything I command you, and your brother Aaron is to tell Pharaoh that he must release the Israelites from his land.

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

“When Pharaoh says to you, ‘Do a miracle,’ and you say to Aaron, ‘Take your staff and throw it down before Pharaoh,’ it will become a snake.”

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

Tell him, ‘The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, has sent me to you to say, “Release my people, that they may serve me in the desert!” But until now you have not listened.

But the magicians of Egypt did the same by their secret arts, and so Pharaoh’s heart remained hard, and he refused to listen to Moses and Aaron – just as the Lord had predicted.

(7:26) Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go to Pharaoh and tell him, ‘Thus says the Lord: “Release my people in order that they may serve me!

The magicians did the same with their secret arts and brought up frogs on the land of Egypt too.

He said, “Tomorrow.” And Moses said, “It will be as you say, so that you may know that there is no one like the Lord our God.

The Lord did as Moses asked – the frogs died out of the houses, the villages, and the fields.