Moses continued to complain to God that his little plan would never work: The Hebrews would never believe God had appeared before him, and the Egyptians would just think he was some kind of loon. God, noticing the walking stick in Moses’ hand, told him to throw the stick to the ground. Moses did this, and the stick turned into a snake as it landed. Moses, duly impressed, screamed like a woman and ran behind a tree.

God called after Moses, and told him to grab the snake by the tail. Moses, still sufficiently obedient to do something suicidally foolish, grabbed the snake, which immediately turned back into a stick. “That,” God said (paraphrased), “is how you’ll get them to believe you.”

Next, God ordered Moses to put his hand into his shirt, and then take it out. Moses did so, and his hand came out covered in leprous sores and puss and other nasty things. Before Moses could completely freak out, God told him to put his disgusting leprous hand back in his shirt, and draw it out again. Moses did so, and the hand came out perfectly clean and disease-free. Thus, God gave Moses yet another sign in case the first one didn’t convince enough people.

Just in case there were people who didn’t think sticks turning into snakes and hands turning leprous and back again were all that impressive, God told Moses to take some water out of the river, and throw it on the ground, where God would turn it into blood. This, he said, ought to convince even the really hardened skeptics.

Not done complaining, Moses told God that even with all that, it still wouldn’t work, because he (Moses) stuttered and had a lisp, and he was afraid nobody would follow someone who sounded like a particularly flamboyant Porky Pig. God, getting really irritated by now, said that he had created man, and didn’t Moses think maybe…just MAYBE…he could get Moses to speak without sounding like an idiot?

Moses was not convinced though, and so God finally relented and told him to go find Aaron the Levite, who had a lovely voice, and get him to speak instead. If Moses needed any pointers as to how such a scheme might work, God said, he should go see Cyrano de Bergerac, or at least Roxanne, starring Steve Martin.

Finally placated, Moses returned to Jethro and asked if he could go into Egypt to go free the Hebrews. Jethro, barely glancing up from the NASCAR race he was watching, told Moses to go on and do whatever the hell he wanted. Then, God told Moses that everyone who had wanted to kill him in Egypt was dead now, so he could go ahead and leave whenever he was ready.

So Moses packed up his wife and sons, and started the long journey to Egypt. They had not gone far when God showed up and told Moses that, by the way, he was going to harden Pharaoh’s heart so that none of the tricks Moses was going to perform would help convince him in the slightest, but he should go ahead and do them anyway. Nothing personal, you understand, it’s just that God had all these frogs and locusts and whatnot, and he had to do SOMETHING with them.

Anyway, after the first couple of tricks fail, God said, Moses should tell Pharaoh that, since Israel is God’s firstborn, if Pharaoh failed to let the Hebrews (aka Israel) go, God would kill Pharaoh’s firstborn. Because, you know, a good way to start an amiable negotiation is to threaten to kill your adversary’s firstborn son.

At any rate, eventually Moses got tired of his sons asking if they were there yet, and elected to stop at an inn for the night. While there, God showed up and, for no readily apparent reason, tried to kill Moses. Zipporah, Moses’ wife (whose name is Hebrew for “chick who always has a cigarette lighter”), thinking fast, circumcised her son with a nearby sharp stone, threw the severed foreskin on Moses’ feet, and said “Surely a bloody husband thou art to me”. Sufficiently grossed out by this display, God let Moses go, and went off to meet Aaron.

When he got to Aaron’s place, God told Aaron to go find Moses. Moses gave Aaron a quick recap of the last chapter and a half, and the two men went to go wow the elders of Israel with God’s signs.

The Israelites, after seeing the snake trick and the leprosy trick and the water into blood trick, and hearing Aaron’s dulcet tones, immediately believed, and fell down in worship.