¹⁴ Then the Lord said to Moses, Pharaoh’s heart is hard and stubborn; he refuses to let the people go.

¹⁵ Go to Pharaoh in the morning; he will be going out to the water; wait for him by the river’s brink; and the rod which was turned to a serpent you shall take in your hand.

¹⁶ And say to him, The Lord, the God of the Hebrews has sent me to you, saying, Let My people go, that they may serve Me in the wilderness; and behold, heretofore you have not listened.

¹⁷ Thus says the Lord, In this you shall know, recognize, and understand that I am the Lord: behold, I will smite with the rod in my hand the waters in the [Nile] River, and they shall be turned to blood.

¹⁸ The fish in the river shall die, the river shall become foul smelling, and the Egyptians shall loathe to drink from it.

¹⁹ And the Lord said to Moses, Say to Aaron, Take your rod and stretch out your hand over the waters of Egypt, over their streams, rivers, pools, and ponds of water, that they may become blood; and there shall be blood throughout all the land of Egypt, in containers both of wood and of stone.

²⁰ Moses and Aaron did as the Lord commanded; [Aaron] lifted up the rod and smote the waters in the river in the sight of Pharaoh and his servants, and all the waters in the river were turned to blood.

²¹ And the fish in the river died; and the river became foul smelling, and the Egyptians could not drink its water, and there was blood throughout all the land of Egypt.

²² But the magicians of Egypt did the same by their enchantments and secret arts; and Pharaoh’s heart was made hard and obstinate, and he did not listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the Lord had said.

²³ And Pharaoh turned and went into his house; neither did he take even this to heart.

²⁴ And all the Egyptians dug round about the river for water to drink, for they could not drink the water of the [Nile].

²⁵ Seven days passed after the Lord had smitten the river.

⁷ And Jesus retired with His disciples to the lake, and a great throng from Galilee followed Him. Also from Judea

⁸ And from Jerusalem and Idumea and from beyond the Jordan and from about Tyre and Sidon—a vast multitude, hearing all the many things that He was doing, came to Him.

⁹ And He told His disciples to have a little boat in [constant] readiness for Him because of the crowd, lest they press hard upon Him and crush Him.

¹⁰ For He had healed so many that all who had distressing bodily diseases kept falling upon Him and pressing upon Him in order that they might touch Him.

¹¹ And the spirits, the unclean ones, ^[a]as often as they might see Him, fell down before Him and kept screaming out, You are the Son of God!

¹² And He charged them strictly and severely under penalty again and again that they should not make Him known.

¹³ And He went up on the hillside and called to Him [^[b]for Himself] those whom He wanted and chose, and they came to Him.

¹⁴ And He appointed twelve to ^[c]continue to be with Him, and that He might send them out to preach [as apostles or special messengers]

¹⁵ And to have authority and power to heal the sick and to drive out demons:

¹⁶ [They were] Simon, and He surnamed [him] Peter;

¹⁷ James son of Zebedee and John the brother of James, and He surnamed them Boanerges, that is, Sons of Thunder;

¹⁸ And Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew (Nathaniel), and Matthew, and Thomas, and James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus (Judas, not Iscariot), and Simon the Cananaean [also called Zelotes],

4 Furthermore, ^[a]brethren, we beg and admonish you in [virtue of our union with] the Lord Jesus, that [you follow the instructions which] you learned from us about how you ought to walk so as to please and gratify God, as indeed you are doing, [and] that you do so even more and more abundantly [attaining yet greater perfection in living this life].

² For you know what charges and precepts we gave you [^[b]on the authority and by the inspiration of] the Lord Jesus.

³ For this is the will of God, that you should be consecrated (separated and set apart for pure and holy living): that you should abstain and shrink from all sexual vice,

⁴ That each one of you should know how to ^[c]possess (control, manage) his own ^[d]body in consecration (purity, separated from things profane) and honor,

⁵ Not [to be used] in the passion of lust like the heathen, who are ignorant of the true God and have no knowledge of His will,

⁶ That no man transgress and overreach his brother and defraud him in this matter or defraud his brother in business. For the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we have already warned you solemnly and ^[e]told you plainly.

⁷ For God has not called us to impurity but to consecration [to dedicate ourselves to the most thorough purity].

⁸ Therefore whoever disregards (sets aside and rejects this) disregards not man but God, Whose [very] Spirit [Whom] He gives to you is holy (chaste, pure).

⁹ But concerning brotherly love [for all other Christians], you have no need to have anyone write you, for you yourselves have been [personally] taught by God to love one another.

¹⁰ And indeed you already are [extending and displaying your love] to all the brethren throughout Macedonia. But we beseech and earnestly exhort you, brethren, that you ^[f]excel [in this matter] more and more,

¹¹ To make it your ambition and definitely endeavor to live quietly and peacefully, to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we charged you,

¹² So that you may bear yourselves becomingly and be correct and honorable and command the respect of the outside world, being dependent on nobody [self-supporting] and having need of nothing.