1 Moses answered, "But suppose they do not believe me or listen to what I say, and they say, 'The LORD did not appear to you'?"
2 The LORD asked him, "What is that in your hand?" "A staff," he replied.
3 "Throw it to the ground," he said. He threw it to the ground; it turned into a snake, and Moses ran from it.
4 Then the LORD told Moses, "Reach out your hand and grab it by the tail." He reached out and took hold of it, and it turned back into a staff in his hand.
5 "This is so that they will believe that the LORD, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you."
6 The LORD said to him again, "Put your hand into the fold of your garment." He put his hand into the fold of his garment, and when he drew it out, the hand was leprous, white as snow.
7 "Put your hand back into the fold of your garment," he said. He put it back, and when he drew it out from the fold, it had become again like the rest of his flesh.
8 "If they do not believe you and pay no attention to the first sign, they may believe the message of the second sign.
9 And if they do not believe even these two signs and do not listen to you, take some water from the Nile and pour it out on the dry ground; the water you take from the Nile will turn to blood on the dry ground."
10 Moses said to the LORD, "Pardon me, Lord, I have never been a man of words, not before and not since you began speaking to your servant. I am heavy of mouth and heavy of tongue."
11 The LORD answered him, "Who gave man a mouth? Who makes anyone mute or deaf, sighted or blind? Is it not I, the LORD?
12 So go now. I will be with your mouth and will teach you what to say."
13 But he said, "Pardon me, Lord; please send someone else, whomever you will send."
14 The LORD's anger blazed against Moses, and he said, "What about your brother Aaron the Levite? I know he is a good speaker. In fact he is already on his way to meet you, and he will be glad at heart when he sees you.
15 Speak to him and put the words in his mouth. I will be with your mouth and with his, and I will teach you both what to do.
16 He will speak to the people for you. He will serve as your mouth, and you will be as God to him.
17 And take this staff in your hand; with it you will perform the signs."
18 Moses went back to his father-in-law Jethro and said, "Let me return, please, to my brothers in Egypt to see if they are still living." Jethro told Moses, "Go in peace."
19 In Midian the LORD said to Moses, "Go back to Egypt, for all the men who wanted to take your life are dead."
20 So Moses took his wife and sons, set them on the donkey and started back to the land of Egypt. In his hand Moses carried the staff of God.
21 The LORD told Moses, "As you go back to Egypt, make sure you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders I have placed in your power. I, however, will harden his heart, and he will not let the people go.
22 Then say to Pharaoh, 'This is what the LORD says: Israel is my son, my firstborn.
23 I told you, "Let my son go, so that he may serve me," but you refused to let him go. Now I am going to kill your son, your firstborn.'"
24 On the way, at the place where they stopped for the night, the LORD met him and tried to put him to death.
25 But Zipporah took a sharp flint, cut off her son's foreskin and touched his feet with it, saying, "You are a bridegroom of blood to me indeed!"
26 So he left him alone. At that time she said "a bridegroom of blood" with reference to the circumcision.
27 The LORD told Aaron, "Go into the wilderness to meet Moses." He went, met him at the mountain of God and kissed him.
28 Moses reported to Aaron everything the LORD had sent him to say and all the signs he had ordered him to perform.
29 Moses and Aaron then went and assembled all the elders of the children of Israel.
30 Aaron told them everything the LORD had said to Moses, and he performed the signs before the people.
31 The people believed. When they heard that the LORD had come to the aid of the children of Israel and had seen their misery, they bowed down and worshiped.