Pray to the Lord, for the mighty thunderings and hail are too much! I will release you and you will stay no longer.”

So Moses left Pharaoh, went out of the city, and spread out his hands to the Lord, and the thunder and the hail ceased, and the rain stopped pouring on the earth.

So Pharaoh’s heart remained hard, and he did not release the Israelites, as the Lord had predicted through Moses.

So Moses and Aaron were brought back to Pharaoh, and he said to them, “Go, serve the Lord your God. Exactly who is going with you?”

Moses said, “We will go with our young and our old, with our sons and our daughters, and with our sheep and our cattle we will go, because we are to hold a pilgrim feast for the Lord.”

He said to them, “The Lord will need to be with you if I release you and your dependents! Watch out! Trouble is right in front of you!

No! Go, you men only, and serve the Lord, for that is what you want.” Then Moses and Aaron were driven out of Pharaoh’s presence.

The Lord said to Moses, “Extend your hand toward heaven so that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, a darkness so thick it can be felt.”

Then Pharaoh summoned Moses and said, “Go, serve the Lord – only your flocks and herds will be detained. Even your families may go with you.”

The Lord said to Moses, “Pharaoh will not listen to you, so that my wonders may be multiplied in the land of Egypt.”

When you enter the land that the Lord will give to you, just as he said, you must observe this ceremony.

At the end of the 430 years, on the very day, all the regiments of the Lord went out of the land of Egypt.

The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “This is the ordinance of the Passover. No foreigner may share in eating it.

So all the Israelites did exactly as the Lord commanded Moses and Aaron.

And on this very day the Lord brought the Israelites out of the land of Egypt by their regiments.

When the Lord brings you into the land of the Canaanites, as he swore to you and to your fathers, and gives it to you,

In the future, when your son asks you ‘What is this?’ you are to tell him, ‘With a mighty hand the Lord brought us out from Egypt, from the land of slavery.

It will be for a sign on your hand and for frontlets on your forehead, for with a mighty hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt.”

I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and he will chase after them. I will gain honor because of Pharaoh and because of all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord.” So this is what they did.

But the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and he chased after the Israelites. Now the Israelites were going out defiantly.