Exodus 4

¹Moyses answering said: They will not believe me, nor hear my voice, but they will say: Our Lord hath not appeared to thee.

²Therefore he said to him: What is that thou holdest in thy hand? He answered: A rod.

³And our Lord said: Cast it upon the ground. He did cast it, and it was turned into a serpent, so that Moyses fled.

⁴And our Lord said: Stretch thy hand, & catch the tail thereof. He stretched it forth, & took hold of it, and it was turned into a rod.

⁵That they may believe, quoth he, that the Lord God of their fathers hath appeared to thee, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, & the God of Jacob.

⁶And our Lord said again: Put thy hand into thy bosom. Which when he had put into his bosom, he brought it forth full of leprosy like snow.

⁷Draw back, quoth he, thy hand into thy bosom. He drew it back, and brought it forth again, & it was like the other flesh.

⁸If they will not believe thee, quoth he, nor hear the word of the former sign, they will believe the word of the sign following.

⁹And if so be they will believe neither of these two signs, nor hear thy voice, take water of the river, & pour it out upon the dry land, and whatsoever thou drawest of the river shall be turned into blood.

¹⁰Moyses said: I beseech thee, Lord, I am not eloquent from yesterday and the day before: and since thou hast spoken to thy servant, I have more impediment & slowness of tongue.

¹¹Our Lord said to him: Who made the mouth of man; or who framed the dumb and deaf, the seeing and the blind? Did not I?

¹²Go on therefore, and I will be in thy mouth; & will teach thee what thou shalt speak.

¹³But he said: I beseech thee, Lord, send whom thou wilt send.

¹⁴Our Lord being angry at Moyses, said: Aaron thy brother the Levite, I know that he is eloquent: behold he cometh forth to meet thee, & seeing thee shall be glad at the heart.

¹⁵Speak to him, and put my words in his mouth; & I will be in thy mouth, and in his mouth, and will shew you what ye must do.

¹⁶He shall speak in thy stead to the people, and shall be thy mouth: but thou shalt be to him in those things that pertain to God.

¹⁷This rod also take in thy hand, wherewith thou shalt do the signs.

¹⁸Moyses went his way, & returned to Jethro his father in law, and said to him: I will go and return to my brethren in Ægypt, that I may see if they be yet alive. To whom Jethro said: Go in peace:

¹⁹Therefore our Lord said to Moyses in Madian: Go, and return into Ægypt: for they are all dead that sought thy life.

²⁰Moyses therefore took his wife, and his children, and set them upon an ass: and returned into Ægypt, carrying the rod of God in his hand.

²¹And our Lord said to him returning into Ægypt: See that thou do all the wonders which I have put in thy hand, before Pharao: I will indurate his heart, and he will not dismiss the people.

²²And thou shalt say to him: This saith the Lord: My first-begotten son is Israel.

²³I said to thee: dismiss my son that he may serve me, and thou wouldst not dismiss him: behold I will kill thy first-begotten son.

²⁴And when he was in his journey, in the Inn, our Lord met him, and would have killed him.

²⁵Sephora by and by took a very sharp stone, and circumcised the prepuce of her son, and touched his feet, and said: A bloody spouse thou art to me.

²⁶And he let him go after she had said, A bloody spouse thou art to me, because of the circumcision.

²⁷And our Lord said to Aaron: Go to Moyses into the desert. Who went forth to meet him unto the Mountain of God, and kissed him.

²⁸And Moyses told Aaron all the words of our Lord, by which he had sent him, and the signs that he had commanded.

²⁹And they came together, and gathered together all the ancients of the children of Israel.

³⁰And Aaron spake all the words which our Lord had said to Moyses: and he wrought the signs before the people,

³¹and the people believed. And they heard that our Lord had visited the children of Israel, and that he had looked upon their affliction; and they adored prostrate.