Exodus 4:1-13 ▼

1 Then Moses answered and said, “What if they will not believe me and will not listen to my voice? For they may say, ‘Yahweh has not appeared to you.’”

2 And Yahweh said to him, “What is this in your hand?” And he said, “A staff.”

3 Then He said, “Throw it on the ground.” So he threw it on the ground, and it became a serpent; and Moses fled from it.

4 And Yahweh said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand and grasp it by its tail”—so he stretched out his hand and took hold of it, and it became a staff in his hand—

5 “that they may believe that Yahweh, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you.”

6 And Yahweh furthermore said to him, “Now put your hand into your bosom.” So he put his hand into his bosom; then he took it out, and behold, his hand was leprous like snow.

7 Then He said, “Return your hand into your bosom.” So he returned his hand into his bosom, and when he took it out of his bosom, behold, it returned to being like the rest of his flesh.

8 “And so it will be, if they will not believe you or listen to the witness of the first sign, they may believe the witness of this last sign.

9 But if it will be that they will not believe even these two signs and that they will not listen to your voice, then you shall take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry land; and the water which you take from the Nile will become blood on the dry land.”

10 Then Moses said to Yahweh, “Please, Lord, I have never been a man of words, neither recently nor in time past, nor since You have spoken to Your slave; for I am one with a hard mouth and a hard tongue.”

11 And Yahweh said to him, “Who has made man’s mouth? Or who makes him mute or deaf, or seeing or blind? Is it not I, Yahweh?

12 So now, go, and I, even I, will be with your mouth and will instruct you what you shall speak.”

13 But he said, “Please, Lord, send now the message by whomever You will.”