The Daily Audio Bible

Parashah 15: Bo (Go) 10:1–13:16

10 Adonai said to Moshe, “Go to Pharaoh, for I have made him and his servants hardhearted, so that I can demonstrate these signs of mine among them, ² so that you can tell your son and grandson about what I did to Egypt and about my signs that I demonstrated among them, and so that you will all know that I am Adonai.” ³ Moshe and Aharon went in to Pharaoh and said to him, “Here is what Adonai, God of the Hebrews, says: ‘How much longer will you refuse to submit to me? Let my people go, so that they can worship me. ⁴ Otherwise, if you refuse to let my people go, tomorrow I will bring locusts into your territory. ⁵ One won’t be able to see the ground, so completely will the locusts cover it. They will eat anything you still have that escaped the hail, including every tree you have growing in the field. ⁶ They will fill your houses and those of your servants and of all the Egyptians. It will be like nothing your fathers or their fathers have ever seen since the day they were born until today.’” Then he turned his back and left.

⁷ Pharaoh’s servants said to him, “How much longer must this fellow be a snare for us? Let the people go and worship Adonai their God. Don’t you understand yet that Egypt is being destroyed?” ⁸ So Moshe and Aharon were brought to Pharaoh again, and he said to them, “Go, worship Adonai your God. But who exactly is going?” ⁹ Moshe answered, “We will go with our young and our old, our sons and our daughters; and we will go with our flocks and herds; for we must celebrate a feast to Adonai.” ¹⁰ Pharaoh said to them, “Adonai certainly will be with you if I ever let you go with your children! It’s clear that you are up to no good. ¹¹ Nothing doing! Just the men among you may go and worship Adonai. That’s what you want, isn’t it?” And they were driven out of Pharaoh’s presence.

(ii) ¹² Adonai said to Moshe, “Reach out your hand over the land of Egypt, so that locusts will invade the land and eat every plant that the hail has left.” ¹³ Moshe reached out with his staff over the land of Egypt, and Adonai caused an east wind to blow on the land all day and all night; and in the morning the east wind brought the locusts. ¹⁴ The locusts went up over all the land of Egypt and settled throughout Egypt’s territory. It was an invasion more severe than there had ever been before or will ever be again. ¹⁵ They completely covered the ground, so that the ground looked black. They ate every plant growing from the ground and all the fruit of the trees left by the hail. Not one green thing remained, not a tree and not a plant in the field, in all the land of Egypt.

¹⁶ Pharaoh hurried to summon Moshe and Aharon and said, “I have sinned against Adonai your God and against you. ¹⁷ Now, therefore, please forgive my sin just this once; and intercede with Adonai your God, so that he will at least take away from me this deadly plague!” ¹⁸ He went out from Pharaoh and interceded with Adonai. ¹⁹ Adonai reversed the wind and made it blow very strongly from the west. It took up the locusts and drove them into the Sea of Suf; not one locust remained on Egyptian soil. ²⁰ But Adonai made Pharaoh hardhearted, and he didn’t let the people of Isra’el go.

²¹ Adonai said to Moshe, “Reach out your hand toward the sky, and there will be darkness over the land of Egypt, darkness so thick it can be felt!” ²² Moshe reached out his hand toward the sky, and there was a thick darkness in the entire land of Egypt for three days. ²³ People couldn’t see each other, and no one went anywhere for three days. But all the people of Isra’el had light in their homes.

(iii) ²⁴ Pharaoh summoned Moshe and said, “Go, worship Adonai; only leave your flocks and herds behind — your children may go with you.” ²⁵ Moshe answered, “You must also see to it that we have sacrifices and burnt offerings, so that we can sacrifice to Adonai our God. ²⁶ Our livestock will also go with us — not a hoof will be left behind — because we must choose some of them to worship Adonai our God, and we don’t know which ones we will need to worship Adonai until we get there.” ²⁷ But Adonai made Pharaoh hardhearted, and he would not let them go. ²⁸ Pharaoh said to them, “Get away from me! And you had better not see my face again, because the day you see my face, you will die!” ²⁹ Moshe answered, “Well spoken! I will see your face no more.”

11 Adonai said to Moshe, “I’m going to bring still one more plague on Pharaoh and Egypt, and after that he will let you leave here. When he does let you go, he will throw you out completely! ² Now tell the people that every man is to ask his neighbor and every woman her neighbor for gold and silver jewelry.” ³ Adonai made the Egyptians favorably disposed toward the people. Moreover, Moshe was regarded by Pharaoh’s servants and the people as a very great man in the land of Egypt.

(iv) ⁴ Moshe said, “Here is what Adonai says: ‘About midnight I will go out into Egypt, ⁵ and all the firstborn in the land of Egypt will die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh sitting on his throne to the firstborn of the slave-girl at the handmill, and all the firstborn of the livestock. ⁶ There will be a horrendous wailing throughout all the land of Egypt — there has never been another like it, and there never will be again. ⁷ But not even a dog’s growl will be heard against any of the people of Isra’el, neither against people nor against animals. In this way you will realize that Adonai distinguishes between Egyptians and Isra’el. ⁸ All your servants will come down to me, prostrate themselves before me and say, “Get out! — you and all the people who follow you!” and after that, I will go out!’ ” And he went out from Pharaoh in the heat of anger. ⁹ Adonai said to Moshe, “Pharaoh will not listen to you, so that still more of my wonders will be shown in the land of Egypt.”

¹⁰ Moshe and Aharon did all these wonders before Pharaoh, but Adonai had made Pharaoh hardhearted, and he didn’t let the people of Isra’el leave his land.

12 Adonai spoke to Moshe and Aharon in the land of Egypt; he said, ² “You are to begin your calendar with this month; it will be the first month of the year for you. ³ Speak to all the assembly of Isra’el and say, ‘On the tenth day of this month, each man is to take a lamb or kid for his family, one per household — ⁴ except that if the household is too small for a whole lamb or kid, then he and his next-door neighbor should share one, dividing it in proportion to the number of people eating it. ⁵ Your animal must be without defect, a male in its first year, and you may choose it from either the sheep or the goats.

⁶ “‘You are to keep it until the fourteenth day of the month, and then the entire assembly of the community of Isra’el will slaughter it at dusk. ⁷ They are to take some of the blood and smear it on the two sides and top of the door-frame at the entrance of the house in which they eat it. ⁸ That night, they are to eat the meat, roasted in the fire; they are to eat it with matzah and maror. ⁹ Don’t eat it raw or boiled, but roasted in the fire, with its head, the lower parts of its legs and its inner organs. ¹⁰ Let nothing of it remain till morning; if any of it does remain, burn it up completely.

¹¹ “‘Here is how you are to eat it: with your belt fastened, your shoes on your feet and your staff in your hand; and you are to eat it hurriedly. It is Adonai’s Pesach [Passover]. ¹² For that night, I will pass through the land of Egypt and kill all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both men and animals; and I will execute judgment against all the gods of Egypt; I am Adonai. ¹³ The blood will serve you as a sign marking the houses where you are; when I see the blood, I will pass over ^[a] you — when I strike the land of Egypt, the death blow will not strike you.

20 “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a farmer who went out at daybreak to hire workers for his vineyard. ² After agreeing with the workers on a wage of one denarius, [the standard daily wage,] he sent them off to his vineyard. ³ Then, on going out at about nine in the morning, he saw more men standing around in the market-square doing nothing, ⁴ and said to them, ‘You go to the vineyard too — I’ll pay you a fair wage.’ So they went. ⁵ At noon, and again around three in the afternoon, he did the same thing. ⁶ About an hour before sundown, he went out, found still others standing around, and asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day, doing nothing?” ⁷ They said to him, ‘Because no one hired us.’ ‘You too,’ he told them, ‘go to the vineyard.’

⁸ “When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, starting with the last ones hired and ending with the first.’ ⁹ The workers who came an hour before sunset each received a denarius, ¹⁰ so the workers who came first expected they would get more, but each of them also received just a denarius. ¹¹ On receiving their wages, they began grumbling to the farmer, ¹² ‘These latecomers have worked only one hour, while we have borne the brunt of the day’s work in the hot sun, yet you have put them on an equal footing with us!’ ¹³ But he answered one of them, ‘Look, friend, I’m not being unfair with you. Didn’t you agree to work today for a denarius? ¹⁴ Now take your pay and go! I choose to give the last worker as much as I’m giving you. ¹⁵ Haven’t I the right to do what I want with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?’ ¹⁶ Thus the last ones will be first and the first last.”

¹⁷ As Yeshua was going up to Yerushalayim, he took the twelve talmidim aside by themselves and said to them, as they went on their way, ¹⁸ “We are now going up to Yerushalayim, where the Son of Man will be handed over to the head cohanim and Torah-teachers. They will sentence him to death ¹⁹ and turn him over to the Goyim, who will jeer at him, beat him and execute him on a stake as a criminal. But on the third day, he will be raised.”

²⁰ Then Zavdai’s sons came to Yeshua with their mother. She bowed down, begging a favor from him. ²¹ He said to her, “What do you want?” She replied, “Promise that when you become king, these two sons of mine may sit, one on your right and the other on your left.” ²² But Yeshua answered, “You people don’t know what you are asking. Can you drink the cup that I am about to drink?” They said to him, “We can.” ²³ He said to them, “Yes, you will drink my cup. But to sit on my right and on my left is not mine to give, it is for those for whom my Father has prepared it.”

²⁴ Now when the other ten heard about this, they were outraged at the two brothers. ²⁵ But Yeshua called them and said, “You know that among the Goyim, those who are supposed to rule them become tyrants, and their superiors become dictators. ²⁶ Among you, it must not be like that. On the contrary, whoever among you wants to be a leader must become your servant, ²⁷ and whoever wants to be first must be your slave! ²⁸ For the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve — and to give his life as a ransom for many.”