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Chapter 4
1 Moses answered and said: They will not believe me, nor hear my voice, but they will say: The Lord has not appeared to you.
2 Then he said to him: What is that you hold in your hand? He answered: A rod.
3 And the Lord said: Cast it down upon the ground. He cast it down, and it was turned into a serpent: so that Moses fled from it.
4 And the Lord said: Put out your hand and take it by the tail. He put forth his hand, and took hold of it, and it was turned into a rod.
5 That they may believe, said he, that the Lord God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you.
6 And the Lord said again: Put your hand into your bosom. And when he had put it into his bosom, he brought it forth leprous as snow.
7 And he said: Put back your hand into your bosom. He put it back, and brought it out again, and it was like the other flesh.
8 If they will not believe you, said he, nor hear the voice of the former sign, they will believe the word of the latter sign.
9 But if they will not even believe these two signs, nor hear your voice: take of the river water, and pour it out upon the dry land, and whatsoever you draw out of the river shall be turned into blood.
10 Moses said: I beseech you, Lord. I am not eloquent from yesterday and the day before: and since you have spoken to your servant, I have more impediment and slowness of tongue.
11 The Lord said to him: Who made man's mouth? or who made the dumb and the deaf, the seeing and the blind? did not I?
12 Go therefore and I will be in your mouth: and I will teach you what you shall speak.
13 But he said: I beseech you, Lord send whom you will send.
14 The Lord being angry at Moses, said Aaron the Levite is your brother, I know that he is eloquent: behold he comes forth to meet you, and seeing you shall be glad at heart.
15 Speak to him, and put my words in his mouth: and I will be in your mouth, and in his mouth, and will shew you what you must do.
16 He shall speak in your stead to the people, and shall be your mouth: but you shall be to him in those things that pertain to God.
17 And take this rod in your hand, wherewith you shall do the signs.
18 Moses went his way, and returned to Jethro his father in law and said to him: I will go and return to my brethren into Egypt, that I may see if they be yet alive. And Jethro said to him: Go in peace.
19 And the Lord said to Moses, in Madian: Go, and return into Egypt: for they are all dead that sought your life.
20 Moses therefore took his wife, and his sons, and set them upon an ass: and returned into Egypt, carrying the rod of God in his hand.
21 And the Lord said to him as he was returning into Egypt: See that you do all the wonders before Pharao, which I have put in your hand: I shall harden his heart, and he will not let the people go.
22 And you shall say to him: Thus said the Lord: Israel is my son, my firstborn.
23 I have said to you: Let my son go, that he may serve me, and you would not let him go: behold I will kill your son, your firstborn.
24 And when he was in his journey, in the inn, the Lord met him, and would have killed him.
25 Immediately Sephora took a very sharp stone, and circumcised the fore skin of her son, and touched his feet and said: A bloody spouse are you to me.
26 And he let him go after she had said A bloody spouse are you to me, because of the circumcision.
27 And the Lord said to Aaron: Go into the desert to meet Moses. And he went forth to meet him in the mountain of God, and kissed him.
28 And Moses told Aaron all the words of the Lord, by which he had sent him, and the signs that he had commanded.
29 And they came together, and they assembled all the ancients of the children of Israel.
30 And Aaron spoke all the words which the Lord had said to Moses: and he wrought the signs before the people,
31 And the people believed. And they heard that the Lord had visited the children of Israel: and that he had looked upon their affliction: and falling down they adored.