22. The Lord told Moses, “Raise your hand into the air and the hail will start falling all over Egypt. The hail will fall on all the people, animals, and plants in all the fields of Egypt.”
23. So Moses raised his walking stick into the air, and the Lord sent hail with thunder and lightning down on the earth. The Lord caused hail to fall all over Egypt.
24. The hail was falling, and lightning was flashing all through it. It was the worst hailstorm that had ever hit Egypt since it had become a nation.
25. The storm destroyed everything in the fields in Egypt. The hail destroyed people, animals, and plants. The hail also broke all the trees in the fields.
26. The only place that did not get hail was the land of Goshen, where the Israelites lived.
27. Pharaoh sent for Moses and Aaron and told them, “This time I have sinned. The Lord is right, and I and my people are wrong.
28. We have had enough of this hail and thunder! Ask the Lord to stop the storm, and I will let you go. You don’t have to stay here.”
29. Moses told Pharaoh, “When I leave the city, I will lift my hands in prayer to the Lord, and the thunder and hail will stop. Then you will know that the Lord is in this land.
30. But I know that you and your officials don’t really fear and respect the Lord yet.”
31. The flax had already developed its seeds, and the barley was already blooming. So these plants were destroyed.
32. But wheat and spelt ripen later than the other grains, so these plants were not destroyed.
33. Moses left Pharaoh and went outside the city. He lifted his hands in prayer to the Lord. And the thunder and hail stopped, and then even the rain stopped.
34. When Pharaoh saw that the rain, hail, and thunder had stopped, he again did wrong. He and his officials became stubborn again.
35. Pharaoh refused to let the Israelites go free, just as the Lord had said through Moses.