Chapter 4
1Then Moses answered, “What if they do not believe me or listen to my voice? For they may say, ‘AO has not appeared to you.’”
2And AO asked him, “What is that in your hand?” “A staff,” he replied.
3“Throw it on the ground,” said [AO]. So [Moses] 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,” AO said to Moses, [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 AO, the God of their fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has appeared to you.”
6Furthermore, AO said to [Moses], “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 [AO]. So [Moses] put his hand back inside his cloak and when he took it out it was restored like the rest of his skin.
8[And AO 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 Adonai,” replied Moses, “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 AO 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 AO?
12Now go! I will help you as you speak and I will teach you what to say.”
13But Moses replied, “Please Adonai, send someone else.”
14Then the anger of AO burned against Moses and He said, “Is not Aaron the Levite Ephrathite 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 for you. He will be your spokesman to the people 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 Moses went back to his father-in-law Jethro and said to him, “Please let me return to my brothers in Egypt to see if they are still alive.” [Jethro] replied, “Go in peace.”
19Now AO had said to Moses in Midian, “Go back to Egypt for all the men who sought to kill you are dead.”
20So Moses took his wife and sons, put them on a donkey and headed back to Egypt. And [he] took the staff of God in his hand.
21AO instructed Moses, “When you go back to Egypt, see that you perform all the wonders that I have put within your power before Pharaoh. But I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go.
22Then tell Pharaoh [that] this is what AO says, ‘Israel 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, AO met [Moses] and was about to kill him.
25But Zipporah took a flint knife, cut off her son’s foreskin and touched it to [Moses’] feet. “Surely a bridegroom of blood you [are] to me,” she said.
26So [AO] let him alone. (When she said, “bridegroom of blood” she was referring to the circumcision.)
27Meanwhile, AO had said to Aaron, “Go and meet Moses in the wilderness.” So he went and met [Moses] at the mountain of God and kissed him.
28And Moses told Aaron everything AO had sent him to say and all the signs He had commanded him to perform.
29Then Moses and Aaron went and assembled all the elders of the Israelites
30and Aaron relayed everything AO had said to Moses. And [Moses] performed the signs before the people
31and [they] believed. And when they heard that AO had attended to the Israelites and had seen their affliction, they bowed down and worshiped.