Sssssssnakes!!
Many years passed since Moshe grew up in Paraoh's palace. Moshe was now an old man. He saw that even though HaShem had sent him to free the Jews from their slavery in Egypt, things only seemed to be getting worse and worse. He didn't understand what was going on, and he asked HaShem, "Why are you doing this to the Jews? Things are worse than ever!"
HaShem didn't appreciate that Moshe was complaining. HaShem scolded him:
"Moshe! Don't you trust that I know what I am doing? You doubt me -- but I have shown you far greater miracles than I ever showed Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov, and they never questioned My ways! Now the time has come for me to fulfill My promise to your forefathers. I have heard the cries of My people, and I can be trusted to free them from their slavery and suffering."
Then HaShem began to prepare Moshe for his next encounter with Paraoh.
"Moshe, don't be surprised when Paraoh doesn't believe you when you say that I have appointed you as the leader of the Jews, to take them out of Egypt. When he demands proof, you will show him the miraculous signs I have given you."
Sure enough, when Moshe and Aharon went to Paraoh and said, "HaShem commands you to let the Jewish people go!" Paraoh mocked him: "Sure he did! Prove it to me!"
So Aharon showed Paraoh the first sign: He threw his stick onto the ground and it turned into a slithering SNAKE!
"Ha! You call that a miracle?" Paraoh scoffed. "My magicians can do that silly trick too!"
Paraoh's magicians came and threw sticks to the ground and -- presto! -- they turned into snakes! And then -- poof! -- the magicians turned the snakes back into sticks.
Just then, HaShem caused something to happen that no magician could dream of doing: Aharon's snake turned back into a stick... and then his stick swallowed up all of the magicians' sticks!
That wiped the smug smile right off of Paraoh's face.
But he still didn't listen to Moshe and Aharon's message. He was hard-hearted and very stubborn, and he refused not let the Jews out of the land of Egypt.
The First Plague: Blood!
It was time for Moshe and Aharon to give Paraoh a serious warning:
"Listen, Paraoh! You have been ignoring us until now. But if you still refuse to listen to us and let the Jewish people go, HaShem will send a terrible plague to punish you. HaShem will turn the water of the Nile River into blood!"
Paraoh said, "Oh yeah? See if I care! Let's see Him go ahead and try it!"
So Aharon, standing by the Nile, raised up his stick and stretched it out over the water... and the water in the Nile -- and in all of the canals, lakes, and everywhere else in all of Egypt -- turned into blood! Even the Egyptians' bathtubs filled up with blood instead of water. Eeeeewwww!
Since all of the fish of the Nile died in it, the blood was unbelievably disgusting and smelly! The Egyptians couldn't even stand to go near it -- let alone drink it!
But in the land of Goshen, where all the Jews lived, there was still clear, pure water. So the Egyptians came to Goshen to get water from the Jews. But when a Jewish person would hand over a cup of water to an Egyptian, the water would turn to blood.
Then the Egyptians thought of a new idea: "We'll share the same cup with a Jew and then we'll be able to finally drink some water!"
But that idea backfired... When the Jewish person drank, he got a refreshing sip of cool water. But when the Egyptian drank from the same cup, it became -- you guessed it -- blood.
"I can't believe it! This is terrible! Hmm... how about if we buy your water?"
That idea worked! Only when the Egyptians paid the Jewish people for their water, did it remain water.
For the seven days of the plague of blood, Egyptians bought water from the Jews in Goshen. As you can imagine, all the money the Jews earned that week was very much appreciated!
You would think that after all of this, Paraoh would give in. But he didn't! He asked his magicians to turn some water into blood, and his magicians were indeed able to do it.
Once again, Paraoh said, "Forget it! I'm never going to let the Jews go!"
The Second Plague: Frogs!
Again HaShem told Moshe to warn Paraoh that another plague would be on its way if Paraoh didn't let the Jews go. This time, it would be... FROGS! Everywhere!
"Frogs, eh?" Paraoh sneered. "Well, bring on the frogs, then, because I will NOT let the Jews go!"
So Aharon reached his stick out over the Nile, and a gigantic frog -- bigger than any frog anyone had ever seen before -- hopped right out of the water!
The Egyptians took one look at the enormous frog and did the only thing they could think of doing: They started hitting it with sticks. But they didn't succeed in killing it. Instead, every time someone hit it, little frogs would jump out of the big frog's mouth.
Soon there were frogs jumping around absolutely everywhere. There were frogs leaping on the Egyptians' beds, and even hopping into their burning hot ovens!
And as if that weren't bad enough, the frogs also made an amazingly loud and annoying croaking sound -- constantly. It drove the Egyptians totally crazy; no one could hear what anyone was saying, and it kept them up during the night.
The frogs were driving Paraoh cuckoo, too. They were all over his royal palace. And he didn't like having frogs hopping on his nose at night any more than anyone else did. So he called urgently for Moshe & Aharon.
"Enough already! Get rid of these frogs and I'll let the Jews go!" he shouted.
"All right, Paraoh. When exactly would you like to have the frogs gone?"
"Tomorrow."
"Tomorrow it is. The frogs that are in your homes, courtyards, and fields will be destroyed, but the frogs in the Nile will remain."
The very next day, HaShem made all of the frogs die, except for the ones in the river.
But Paraoh saw that his magicians could also make frogs appear, and besides, the frogs that had been jumping all around his kingdom were now gone... So he said: "I will not -- I repeat, NOT -- let the Jews go!"