Shared Word Translation
Exodus 10
Then the LORD said to Moses, “Go to Pharaoh, for I have made his heart heavy, and the hearts of his servants, so that I may set these signs of mine among them,
and so that you may recount in the hearing of your child and of your child’s child how I dealt harshly with Egypt, and my signs that I set among them, and you may know that I am the LORD.”
So Moses and Aaron came to Pharaoh and said to him, “Thus says the LORD, the God of the Hebrews: How long will you refuse to humble yourself before me? Send my people away, that they may serve me.
For if you refuse to send my people away, look, tomorrow I will bring locusts into your territory.
They will cover the face of the land, so that no one will be able to see the land. They will eat the remainder of what escaped—the part left for you from the hail—and they will eat every tree that grows for you from the field.
They will fill your houses, the houses of all your servants, and the houses of all Egypt—something your ancestors and your ancestors’ ancestors have never seen from the day they came to be upon the earth until this day.” Then he turned and went out from Pharaoh’s presence.
Pharaoh’s servants said to him, “How long will this man be a snare to us? Send the men away, that they may serve the LORD their God. Do you not yet know that Egypt is ruined?”
So Moses and Aaron were brought back to Pharaoh, and he said to them, “Go, serve the LORD your God. But who exactly are the ones going?”
Moses said, “We will go with our young and our old; we will go with our sons and our daughters, with our flocks and our herds, for we have a festival of the LORD.”
He said to them, “May LORD be with you in that way, if I send you and your little ones! See: disaster is before you.
Not so! Go now, you men, and serve the LORD, for that is what you are seeking.” And he drove them from Pharaoh’s presence.
Then the LORD said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the land of Egypt for the locusts, that they may come up over the land of Egypt and eat every plant of the land, all that the hail left.”
So Moses stretched out his staff over the land of Egypt, and the LORD drove an east wind over the land all that day and all that night. When morning came, the east wind had carried in the locusts.
The locusts came up over all the land of Egypt and settled throughout all the territory of Egypt. They were very severe; never before had there been locusts like them, nor would there ever be again.
They covered the face of the whole land, and the land grew dark. They ate every plant of the land and all the fruit of the trees that the hail had left. Nothing green remained on any tree or among the plants of the field in all the land of Egypt.
Then Pharaoh hurried to call Moses and Aaron and said, “I have sinned against the LORD your God and against you.
Now, please, bear my sin just this once, and plead with the LORD your God, that he may remove from me only this death.”
So he went out from Pharaoh’s presence and pleaded with the LORD.
The LORD turned a very strong west wind, and it carried away the locusts and drove them into the Sea of Reeds. Not one locust remained in all the territory of Egypt.
But the LORD strengthened Pharaoh’s heart, and he did not send the Israelites away.
Then the LORD said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand toward the heavens, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt—a darkness that can be felt.”
So Moses stretched out his hand toward the heavens, and there was thick darkness throughout all the land of Egypt for three days.
No one saw another, and no one rose from where they were for three days; but all the Israelites had light in their dwellings.
Then Pharaoh called Moses and said, “Go, serve the LORD. Only your flocks and your herds must remain behind. Your little ones may also go with you.”
But Moses said, “You yourself must also put sacrifices and burnt offerings into our hands, and we will offer them to the LORD our God.
Our livestock too must go with us; not a hoof will remain behind. For from it we must take to serve the LORD our God, and we do not know with what we must serve the LORD until we arrive there.”
But the LORD strengthened Pharaoh’s heart, and he was unwilling to send them away.
Pharaoh said to him, “Go away from me! Watch yourself—do not ever again see my face, for on the day you see my face, you will die.”
Moses said, “You have spoken rightly. I will never again see your face.”