Locusts and Darkness

1 And the Lord said to Moses, Go in to Pharaoh; for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his servants, in order to set these signs of Mine among them; 2 and so that you may tell your son and your son's son the miracles that I did in Egypt and the signs that I set among them, so that you may know that I am the Lord. 3 And Moses and Aaron went in to Pharaoh, and said to him, This is what the Lord, the God of the Jews, says: How long will you stubbornly refuse to humble yourself before Me? Send My people away, so that they may worship before Me. 4 For if you refuse to release My people, look, tomorrow I will bring locusts into your territory, 5 and they shall hide the sun over the earth, so that no one will be able to see the ground; and they will devour what was left, what escaped and remained to you from the hail, and will devour every tree that grows for you in the field; 6 and they shall fill your houses, and the houses of your servants, and the houses of all the Egyptians, as neither your fathers nor your fathers' fathers have seen, from the day they came upon the earth until this day. And he turned and went out from Pharaoh. 7 And Pharaoh's servants said to him, How long shall this man be a snare to us? Send the men away, so that they may worship before the Lord their God. Do you not know yet that Egypt is ruined? 8 And Moses and Aaron were brought back to Pharaoh; and he said to them, Go, worship before the Lord your God: but who exactly is going? 9 And Moses said, We will go with our young and with our old; we will go with our sons and with our daughters, with our sheep and with our oxen; for we have a feast before the Lord. 10 And he said to them, So may the Memra of the Lord be your help, as surely as I send you away with your little ones: beware, for the evil you are planning to do will be turned back against your own faces. 11 Not so: let the men go and worship before the Lord; for that is what you asked for. And they were driven out of Pharaoh's presence. 12 And the Lord said to Moses, Stretch out your hand over the land of Egypt, so that the locusts may come up over the land of Egypt and devour every plant of the land, all that the hail has left. 13 And Moses stretched out his staff over the land of Egypt, and the Lord drove an east wind over the land all that day and all night; in the morning the east wind had brought the locusts. 14 And the locusts came up over all the land of Egypt, and settled throughout all the territory of Egypt in very great force. Never before had there been locusts like them, nor will there ever be again; 15 and they hid the sun over the whole earth, and the land was darkened; and they devoured every plant of the ground and all the fruit of the trees that the hail had left; and nothing green remained on the trees or in the plants of the field in all the land of Egypt. 16 And Pharaoh hurried to call Moses and Aaron, and said, I have sinned before the Lord your God, and against you. 17 And now, forgive my sin only this once, and pray before the Lord your God that He may remove only this death from me. 18 And they went out from Pharaoh, and prayed before the Lord. 19 And the Lord turned the wind into a very strong west wind, and it carried the locusts away and drove them into the Red Sea; not one locust remained in all the territory of Egypt. 20 Yet Pharaoh's heart was hardened, and he would not send the sons of Israel away. 21 And the Lord said to Moses, Stretch out your hand toward heaven, and there shall be darkness over the land of Egypt after the darkness of the night has passed.⁠a 22 And Moses stretched out his hand toward heaven, and there was thick darkness in all the land of Egypt for three days: 23 no one could see his brother, and no one rose from his place for three days. Yet all the sons of Israel had light in their homes. 24 And Pharaoh called Moses and said, Go, worship before the Lord; only leave your sheep and your oxen behind; your little ones may also go with you. 25 But Moses said, You must also put holy sacrifices and burnt offerings into our hands, so that we may offer them before the Lord our God. 26 Our cattle shall also go with us; not one shall be left behind; for we must take some of them to worship the Lord our God, and we do not know what we must offer before Him until we arrive there. 27 But the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he was not willing to send them away. 28 And Pharaoh said to him, Get away from me. Take care. Never see my face again; for on the day you see my face you shall die. 29 And Moses said, You have spoken well. I will never see your face again.