Locusts

10 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go and see the king. I have made him and his officials stubborn, in order that I may perform these miracles among them ² and in order that you may be able to tell your children and grandchildren how I made fools of the Egyptians when I performed the miracles. All of you will know that I am the Lord.”

³ So Moses and Aaron went to the king and said to him, “The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, says, ‘How much longer will you refuse to submit to me? Let my people go, so that they may worship me. ⁴ If you keep on refusing, then I will bring locusts into your country tomorrow. ⁵ There will be so many that they will completely cover the ground. They will eat everything that the hail did not destroy, even the trees that are left. ⁶ They will fill your palaces and the houses of all your officials and all your people. They will be worse than anything your ancestors ever saw.’” Then Moses turned and left.

⁷ The king's officials said to him, “How long is this man going to give us trouble? Let the Israelite men go, so that they can worship the Lord their God. Don't you realize that Egypt is ruined?”

⁸ So Moses and Aaron were brought back to the king, and he said to them, “You may go and worship the Lord your God. But exactly who will go?”

⁹ Moses answered, “We will all go, including our children and our old people. We will take our sons and daughters, our sheep and goats, and our cattle, because we must hold a festival to honor the Lord.”

¹⁰ The king said, “I swear by the Lord that I will never let you take your women and children! It is clear that you are plotting to revolt. ¹¹ No! Only the men may go and worship the Lord if that is what you want.” With that, Moses and Aaron were driven out of the king's presence.

¹² Then the Lord said to Moses, “Raise your hand over the land of Egypt to bring the locusts. They will come and eat everything that grows, everything that has survived the hail.” ¹³ So Moses raised his stick, and the Lord caused a wind from the east to blow on the land all that day and all that night. By morning it had brought the locusts. ^14 (A)They came in swarms and settled over the whole country. It was the largest swarm of locusts that had ever been seen or that ever would be seen again. ¹⁵ They covered the ground until it was black with them; they ate everything that the hail had left, including all the fruit on the trees. Not a green thing was left on any tree or plant in all the land of Egypt.

¹⁶ Then the king hurriedly called Moses and Aaron and said, “I have sinned against the Lord your God and against you. ¹⁷ Now forgive my sin this one time and pray to the Lord your God to take away this fatal punishment from me.” ¹⁸ Moses left the king and prayed to the Lord. ¹⁹ And the Lord changed the east wind into a very strong west wind, which picked up the locusts and blew them into the Gulf of Suez.^[a] Not one locust was left in all of Egypt. ²⁰ But the Lord made the king stubborn, and he did not let the Israelites go.

Darkness

^21 (B)The Lord then said to Moses, “Raise your hand toward the sky, and a darkness thick enough to be felt will cover the land of Egypt.” ^22 (C)Moses raised his hand toward the sky, and there was total darkness throughout Egypt for three days. ²³ The Egyptians could not see each other, and no one left his house during that time. But the Israelites had light where they were living.

²⁴ The king called Moses and said, “You may go and worship the Lord; even your women and children may go with you. But your sheep, goats, and cattle must stay here.”

²⁵ Moses answered, “Then you would have to provide us with animals for sacrifices and burnt offerings to offer to the Lord our God. ²⁶ No, we will take our animals with us; not one will be left behind. We ourselves must select the animals with which to worship the Lord our God. And until we get there, we will not know what animals to sacrifice to him.”

²⁷ The Lord made the king stubborn, and he would not let them go. ²⁸ He said to Moses, “Get out of my sight! Don't let me ever see you again! On the day I do, you will die!”

²⁹ “You are right,” Moses answered. “You will never see me again.”

Moses Announces the Death of the First-Born

11 Then the Lord said to Moses, “I will send only one more punishment on the king of Egypt and his people. After that he will let you leave. In fact, he will drive all of you out of here. ² Now speak to the people of Israel and tell all of them to ask their neighbors for gold and silver jewelry.” ³ The Lord made the Egyptians respect the Israelites. Indeed, the officials and all the people considered Moses to be a very great man.

⁴ Moses then said to the king, “The Lord says, ‘At about midnight I will go through Egypt, ⁵ and every first-born son in Egypt will die, from the king's son, who is heir to the throne, to the son of the slave woman who grinds grain. The first-born of all the cattle will die also. ⁶ There will be loud crying all over Egypt, such as there has never been before or ever will be again. ⁷ But not even a dog will bark at the Israelites or their animals. Then you will know that I, the Lord, make a distinction between the Egyptians and the Israelites.’” ⁸ Moses concluded by saying, “All your officials will come to me and bow down before me, and they will beg me to take all my people and go away. After that, I will leave.” Then in great anger Moses left the king.

⁹ The Lord had said to Moses, “The king will continue to refuse to listen to you, in order that I may do more of my miracles in Egypt.” ¹⁰ Moses and Aaron performed all these miracles before the king, but the Lord made him stubborn, and he would not let the Israelites leave his country.

The Passover

12 ^(D)The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron in Egypt: ² “This month is to be the first month of the year for you. ³ Give these instructions to the whole community of Israel: On the tenth day of this month each man must choose either a lamb or a young goat for his household. ⁴ If his family is too small to eat a whole animal, he and his next-door neighbor may share an animal, in proportion to the number of people and the amount that each person can eat. ⁵ You may choose either a sheep or a goat, but it must be a one-year-old male without any defects. ⁶ Then, on the evening of the fourteenth day of the month, the whole community of Israel will kill the animals. ⁷ The people are to take some of the blood and put it on the doorposts and above the doors of the houses in which the animals are to be eaten. ⁸ That night the meat is to be roasted, and eaten with bitter herbs and with bread made without yeast. ⁹ Do not eat any of it raw or boiled, but eat it roasted whole, including the head, the legs, and the internal organs. ¹⁰ You must not leave any of it until morning; if any is left over, it must be burned. ¹¹ You are to eat it quickly, for you are to be dressed for travel, with your sandals on your feet and your walking stick in your hand. It is the Passover Festival to honor me, the Lord.

¹² “On that night I will go through the land of Egypt, killing every first-born male, both human and animal, and punishing all the gods of Egypt. I am the Lord. ¹³ The blood on the doorposts will be a sign to mark the houses in which you live. When I see the blood, I will pass over you and will not harm you when I punish the Egyptians.

The Workers in the Vineyard

20 “The Kingdom of heaven is like this. Once there was a man who went out early in the morning to hire some men to work in his vineyard. ² He agreed to pay them the regular wage, a silver coin a day, and sent them to work in his vineyard. ³ He went out again to the marketplace at nine o'clock and saw some men standing there doing nothing, ⁴ so he told them, ‘You also go and work in the vineyard, and I will pay you a fair wage.’ ⁵ So they went. Then at twelve o'clock and again at three o'clock he did the same thing. ⁶ It was nearly five o'clock when he went to the marketplace and saw some other men still standing there. ‘Why are you wasting the whole day here doing nothing?’ he asked them. ⁷ ‘No one hired us,’ they answered. ‘Well, then, you go and work in the vineyard,’ he told them.

^8 (A)“When evening came, the owner told his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, starting with those who were hired last and ending with those who were hired first.’ ⁹ The men who had begun to work at five o'clock were paid a silver coin each. ¹⁰ So when the men who were the first to be hired came to be paid, they thought they would get more; but they too were given a silver coin each. ¹¹ They took their money and started grumbling against the employer. ¹² ‘These men who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘while we put up with a whole day's work in the hot sun—yet you paid them the same as you paid us!’ ¹³ ‘Listen, friend,’ the owner answered one of them, ‘I have not cheated you. After all, you agreed to do a day's work for one silver coin. ¹⁴ Now take your pay and go home. I want to give this man who was hired last as much as I gave you. ¹⁵ Don't I have the right to do as I wish with my own money? Or are you jealous because I am generous?’”

^16 (B)And Jesus concluded, “So those who are last will be first, and those who are first will be last.”

Jesus Speaks a Third Time about His Death^(C)

¹⁷ As Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the twelve disciples aside and spoke to them privately, as they walked along. ¹⁸ “Listen,” he told them, “we are going up to Jerusalem, where the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the teachers of the Law. They will condemn him to death ¹⁹ and then hand him over to the Gentiles, who will make fun of him, whip him, and crucify him; but three days later he will be raised to life.”

A Mother's Request^(D)

²⁰ Then the wife of Zebedee came to Jesus with her two sons, bowed before him, and asked him for a favor.

²¹ “What do you want?” Jesus asked her.

She answered, “Promise me that these two sons of mine will sit at your right and your left when you are King.”

²² “You don't know what you are asking for,” Jesus answered the sons. “Can you drink the cup of suffering that I am about to drink?”

“We can,” they answered.

²³ “You will indeed drink from my cup,” Jesus told them, “but I do not have the right to choose who will sit at my right and my left. These places belong to those for whom my Father has prepared them.”

²⁴ When the other ten disciples heard about this, they became angry with the two brothers. ^25 (E)So Jesus called them all together and said, “You know that the rulers of the heathen have power over them, and the leaders have complete authority. ^26 (F)This, however, is not the way it shall be among you. If one of you wants to be great, you must be the servant of the rest; ²⁷ and if one of you wants to be first, you must be the slave of the others— ²⁸ like the Son of Man, who did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life to redeem many people.”

A Prayer for Guidance and Protection^[a]

⁶ Lazy people should learn a lesson from the way ants live. ⁷ They have no leader, chief, or ruler, ⁸ but they store up their food during the summer, getting ready for winter. ⁹ How long is the lazy man going to lie around? When is he ever going to get up? ^10 (A)“I'll just take a short nap,” he says; “I'll fold my hands and rest a while.” ¹¹ But while he sleeps, poverty will attack him like an armed robber.