Daily Bread

8 ^1 [a]Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go to Pharaoh and say to him, ‘This is what the Lord says: Let my people go, so that they may worship^(A) me. ² If you refuse to let them go, I will send a plague of frogs^(B) on your whole country. ³ The Nile will teem with frogs. They will come up into your palace and your bedroom and onto your bed, into the houses of your officials and on your people,^(C) and into your ovens and kneading troughs.^{(D) 4} The frogs will come up on you and your people and all your officials.’”

⁵ Then the Lord said to Moses, “Tell Aaron, ‘Stretch out your hand with your staff^(E) over the streams and canals and ponds, and make frogs^(F) come up on the land of Egypt.’”

⁶ So Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt, and the frogs^(G) came up and covered the land. ⁷ But the magicians did the same things by their secret arts;^(H) they also made frogs come up on the land of Egypt.

⁸ Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said, “Pray^(I) to the Lord to take the frogs away from me and my people, and I will let your people go to offer sacrifices^(J) to the Lord.”

⁹ Moses said to Pharaoh, “I leave to you the honor of setting the time^(K) for me to pray for you and your officials and your people that you and your houses may be rid of the frogs, except for those that remain in the Nile.”

¹⁰ “Tomorrow,” Pharaoh said.

Moses replied, “It will be as you say, so that you may know there is no one like the Lord our God.^{(L) 11} The frogs will leave you and your houses, your officials and your people; they will remain only in the Nile.”

¹² After Moses and Aaron left Pharaoh, Moses cried out to the Lord about the frogs he had brought on Pharaoh. ¹³ And the Lord did what Moses asked.^(M) The frogs died in the houses, in the courtyards and in the fields. ¹⁴ They were piled into heaps, and the land reeked of them. ¹⁵ But when Pharaoh saw that there was relief,^(N) he hardened his heart^(O) and would not listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the Lord had said.