[7:1] And the Lord said to Moses, “See, I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron shall be your prophet.
[7:2] You shall speak all that I command you, and your brother Aaron shall tell Pharaoh to let the people of Israel go out of his land.
[7:3] But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and though I multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt,
[7:4] Pharaoh will not listen to you. Then I will lay my hand on Egypt and bring my hosts, my people the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great acts of judgment.
[7:5] The Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring out the people of Israel from among them.”
[7:6] Moses and Aaron did so; they did just as the Lord commanded them.
[7:7] Now Moses was eighty years old, and Aaron eighty-three years old, when they spoke to Pharaoh.
[7:8] Then the Lord said to Moses and Aaron,
[7:9] “When Pharaoh says to you, ‘Prove yourselves by working a miracle,’ then you shall say to Aaron, ‘Take your staff and cast it down before Pharaoh, that it may become a serpent.’”
[7:10] So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and did just as the Lord commanded. Aaron cast down his staff before Pharaoh and his servants, and it became a serpent.
[7:11] Then Pharaoh summoned the wise men and the sorcerers, and they, the magicians of Egypt, also did the same by their secret arts.
[7:12] For each man cast down his staff, and they became serpents. But Aaron’s staff swallowed up their staffs.
[7:13] Still Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, and he would not listen to them, as the Lord had said.