But the more the Egyptians ¹  oppressed them, the more they multiplied and spread. ²  As a result the Egyptians loathed ³  the Israelites,

The Lord said ¹  to Aaron, “Go to the wilderness to meet Moses. So he went and met him at the mountain of God ²  and greeted him with a kiss. ³ 

They were the men who were speaking to Pharaoh king of Egypt, in order to bring the Israelites out of Egypt. It was the same Moses and Aaron.

Pharaoh said, “I will release you ¹  so that you may sacrifice ²  to the Lord your God in the desert. Only you must not go very far. ³  Do ⁴  pray for me.”

and the Lord did as Moses asked ¹  – he removed the swarms of flies from Pharaoh, from his servants, and from his people. Not one remained!

As Aaron spoke ¹  to the whole community of the Israelites and they looked toward the desert, there the glory of the Lord ²  appeared ³  in the cloud,

Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, together with Moses’ ¹  sons and his wife, came to Moses in the desert where he was camping by ²  the mountain of God. ³ 

¹ “I am going to send ²  an angel ³  before you to protect you as you journey ⁴  and to bring you into the place that I have prepared. ⁵ 

“I will send my terror ¹  before you, and I will destroy ²  all the people whom you encounter; I will make all your enemies turn their backs ³  to you.

Now Moses ¹  was shepherding the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the desert ²  and came to the mountain of God, to Horeb. ³ 

¹ Afterward Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said, “Thus says the Lord, ²  the God of Israel, ‘Release ³  my people so that they may hold a pilgrim feast ⁴  to me in the desert.’”

Tell him, ‘The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, has sent me to you to say, ¹  “Release my people, that they may serve me ²  in the desert!” But until now ³  you have not listened. ⁴ 

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.

and the Lord turned a very strong west wind, ¹  and it picked up the locusts and blew them into the Red Sea. ²  Not one locust remained in all the territory of Egypt.

¹ The Lord said to Moses, “I will bring one more plague on Pharaoh and on Egypt; after that he will release you from this place. When he releases you, ²  he will drive you out completely ³  from this place.

Pharaoh got up ¹  in the night, ²  along with all his servants and all Egypt, and there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was no house ³  in which there was not someone dead.

Moses said to the people, “Remember ¹  this day on which you came out from Egypt, from the place where you were enslaved, ²  for the Lord brought you out of there ³  with a mighty hand – and no bread made with yeast may be eaten. ⁴ 

and they said to Moses, “Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the desert? ¹  What in the world ²  have you done to us by bringing ³  us out of Egypt?

Isn’t this what we told you ¹  in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone so that we can serve the Egyptians, ²  because it is better for us to serve ³  the Egyptians than to die in the desert!’” ⁴ 

You will bring them in ¹  and plant them in the mountain ²  of your inheritance, in the place you made ³  for your residence, O Lord, the sanctuary, O Lord, that your hands have established.