Vaera

God speaks to Moses: I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and I have remembered My covenant. Four promises follow — I will bring you out, I will deliver you, I will redeem you with an outstretched arm, I will take you to Me for a people — and a fifth, to bring them into the land. The people, crushed by labor, cannot listen. A genealogy roots Moses and Aaron in the tribe of Levi, and the brothers — eighty and eighty-three — return to Pharaoh, where Aaron's staff becomes a serpent and swallows the staffs of Egypt's magicians.

The plagues begin. The Nile turns to blood and the fish die; frogs cover the land, and Pharaoh bargains and reneges; the dust becomes lice, and the magicians, unable to match it, say "this is the finger of God." Swarms of wild creatures fill Egypt — but Goshen, where Israel dwells, is set apart, as God distinguishes between the two peoples.

Pestilence kills Egypt's livestock while Israel's is untouched. Soot thrown heavenward becomes boils on man and beast, until the magicians themselves cannot stand before Moses. Then hail mixed with fire flattens the flax and barley — though the wheat, ripening later, survives, and Israel in Goshen sees no hail. Pharaoh confesses, "I have sinned this time," until the thunder stops; then his heart hardens again, as had been said.