Exodus 11:1-10

10: Death

1 The Lord said to Moses, ‘I will cause Pharaoh and Egypt to have one more trouble. Then Pharaoh will let you go out of Egypt. He will cause you to leave very quickly and go away from him. 2 So tell the Israelite people now what they must do. Every man and every woman must ask the Egyptians that live near them for gold things and silver things.’

3 The Lord caused the Egyptians to be kind to the Israelite people. As for Moses himself, Pharaoh's officers and the Egyptian people respected him as an important man.

4 So Moses went to the king and he said, ‘The Lord God says this: “At about midnight, I will travel through the whole country of Egypt. 5 I will cause all the firstborn sons in Egypt to die. The firstborn son of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, will die. The firstborn son of the female slave who makes flour, will die. Even the firstborn of the farm animals will die. 6 Everyone will be crying loudly in the whole country of Egypt. Nothing like that has ever happened before now, and it will never happen again. 7 But no trouble will happen to the Israelite people. Not even a dog will frighten them or their animals. Then you will know that I, the Lord, make a difference between Egypt and Israel.” ’

11:5The firstborn son of every family in Egypt would die during that night. There would be no difference between rich families and poor families. The firstborn sons of important people and the sons of slaves would all die. Even the firstborn male children of their cows would die.

8 Moses continued to say to the king, ‘All your officers will come to me. They will fall down in front of me and they will say, “Now go! Leave here with all your people.” After that, I will leave.’

After he said that, Moses left Pharaoh. Moses was very angry.

9 The Lord had already said to Moses, ‘Pharaoh will refuse to listen to you. But that will give me the chance to do even greater miracles in Egypt.’

10 Moses and Aaron did all these miracles in front of Pharaoh. But the Lord caused Pharaoh's mind to be hard. So Pharaoh would not let the Israelites leave his country.