Pharaoh Rejects Yahweh’s Authority and Makes Israel’s Troubles Worse

5 And afterward, Moses and Aaron went, and they said to Pharaoh, “Thus says Yahweh the God of Israel, ‘Release my people so that they may hold a festival for me in the desert.’”

²⁷ And he said to them, “Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, ‘Put each his sword on his side. Go back and forth^[a] from gate to gate in the camp, and kill, each his brother and each his friend and each his close relative.’”

²³ Three times in the year all your males will appear before the Lord, Yahweh, the God of Israel,