1 Then the Lord said to Moses, “See, I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron will be your prophet.
2 You are to say everything I command you, and your brother Aaron is to tell Pharaoh to let the Israelites go out of his country.
3 But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and though I multiply my miraculous signs and wonders in Egypt,
4 he will not listen to you. Then I will lay my hand on Egypt and with mighty acts of judgment I will bring out my divisions, my people the Israelites.
5 And the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring the Israelites out of it.”
6 Moses and Aaron did just as the Lord commanded them.
7 Moses was eighty years old and Aaron eighty-three when they spoke to Pharaoh.
8
Aaron’s Staff Becomes a Snake
The Lord said to Moses and Aaron,
9 “When Pharaoh says to you, ‘Perform a miracle,’ then say to Aaron, ‘Take your staff and throw it down before Pharaoh,’ and it will become a snake.”
10 So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and did just as the Lord commanded. Aaron threw his staff down in front of Pharaoh and his officials, and it became a snake.
11 Pharaoh then summoned wise men and sorcerers, and the Egyptian magicians also did the same things by their secret arts:
12 Each one threw down his staff and it became a snake. But Aaron’s staff swallowed up their staffs.