Exodus 4
Open in the reader1Then Drawn-Out answered, “What if they do not believe me or listen to my voice? For they may say, ‘He-Who-Is has not appeared to you.’”
2And He-Who-Is asked him, “What is that in your hand?” “A staff,” he replied.
3“Throw it on the ground,” said He-Who-Is. So Drawn-Out threw it on the ground, and it became a snake, and he ran from it.
4“Stretch out your hand and grab it by the tail,” He-Who-Is said to Drawn-Out, who reached out his hand and caught the snake, and it turned back into a staff in his hand.
5“This is so that they may believe that He-Who-Is, the God of their fathers—the God of Father-of-a-Multitude, the God of He-Laughs, and the God of Heel-Grabber—has appeared to you.”
6Furthermore, He-Who-Is said to Drawn-Out, “Put your hand inside your cloak.” So he put his hand inside his cloak, and when he took it out, his hand was leprous, white as snow.
7“Put your hand back inside your cloak,” said He-Who-Is. So Drawn-Out put his hand back inside his cloak, and when he took it out, it was restored, like the rest of his skin.
8And He-Who-Is said, “If they refuse to believe you or heed the witness of the first sign, they may believe that of the second.
9But if they do not believe even these two signs or listen to your voice, take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry ground. Then the water you take from the Nile will become blood on the ground.”
10“Please, He-Who-Is,” Drawn-Out replied, “I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since You have spoken to Your servant, for I am slow of speech and tongue.”
11And He-Who-Is said to him, “Who gave man his mouth? Or who makes the mute or the deaf, the sighted or the blind? Is it not I, He-Who-Is?
12Now go! I will help you as you speak, and I will teach you what to say.”
13But Drawn-Out replied, “Please, Lord, send someone else.”
14Then the anger of He-Who-Is burned against Drawn-Out, and He said, “Is not Aaron the Joined-One your brother? I know that he can speak well, and he is now on his way to meet you. When he sees you, he will be glad in his heart.
15You are to speak to him and put the words in his mouth. I will help both of you to speak, and I will teach you what to do.
16He will speak to the people for you. He will be your spokesman, and it will be as if you were God to him.
17But take this staff in your hand so you can perform signs with it.”
18Then Drawn-Out went back to his father-in-law Abundance and said to him, “Please let me return to my brothers in Two-Straits to see if they are still alive.” “Go in peace,” His-Abundance replied.
19Now He-Who-Is had said to Drawn-Out in Strife, “Go back to Two-Straits, for all the men who sought to kill you are dead.”
20So Drawn-Out took his wife and sons, put them on a donkey, and headed back to Two-Straits. And he took the staff of God in his hand.
21He-Who-Is instructed Drawn-Out, “When you go back to Two-Straits, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders that I have put within your power. But I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go.
22Then tell Pharaoh that this is what He-Who-Is says: ‘Strives-with-God is My firstborn son,
23and I told you to let My son go so that he may worship Me. But since you have refused to let him go, behold, I will kill your firstborn son!’”
24Now at a lodging place along the way, He-Who-Is met Drawn-Out and was about to kill him.
25But Little-Bird took a flint knife, cut off her son’s foreskin, and touched it to Moses’ feet. “Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me,” she said.
26So He-Who-Is let him alone. (When she said, “bridegroom of blood,” she was referring to the circumcision.)
27Meanwhile, He-Who-Is had said to Aaron, “Go and meet Drawn-Out in the wilderness.” So he went and met Drawn-Out at the mountain of God and kissed him.
28And Drawn-Out told Aaron everything He-Who-Is had sent him to say, and all the signs He had commanded him to perform.
29Then Drawn-Out and Aaron went and assembled all the elders of the children of Strives-with-God,
30and Aaron relayed everything He-Who-Is had said to Drawn-Out. And Drawn-Out performed the signs before the people,
31and they believed. And when they heard that He-Who-Is had attended to the children of Strives-with-God and had seen their affliction, they bowed down and worshiped.