Exodus 11

Common English Bible

God announces the final disaster

11 The Lord said to Moses, “I’ll bring one more disaster on Pharaoh and on Egypt. After that, he’ll let you go from here. In fact, when he lets you go, he’ll eagerly chase you out of here. ² Tell every man to ask his neighbor and every woman to ask her neighbor for all their silver and gold jewelry.” ³ The Lord made sure that the Egyptians were kind to the Hebrew people. In addition, Pharaoh’s officials and the Egyptian people even came to honor Moses as a great and important man in the land.

⁴ Moses said, “This is what the Lord says: At midnight I’ll go throughout Egypt. ⁵ Every oldest child in the land of Egypt will die, from the oldest child of Pharaoh who sits on his throne to the oldest child of the servant woman by the millstones, and all the first offspring of the animals. ⁶ Then a terrible cry of agony will echo through the whole land of Egypt unlike any heard before or that ever will be again. ⁷ But as for the Israelites, not even a dog will growl at them, at the people, or at their animals. By this, you will know that the Lord makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel. ⁸ Then all your officials will come down to me, bow to me, and say, ‘Get out, you and all your followers!’ After that I’ll leave.” Then Moses, furious, left Pharaoh.

⁹ The Lord said to Moses, “Pharaoh won’t listen to you so that I can perform even more amazing acts in the land of Egypt.” ¹⁰ Now Moses and Aaron did all these amazing acts in front of Pharaoh, but the Lord made Pharaoh stubborn so that he didn’t let the Israelites go from his land.