9. Moses said, “We will go with our young and our old, with our sons and our daughters, and with our sheep and our cattle we will go, because we are to hold a pilgrim feast for the Lord.”
10. He said to them, “The Lord will need to be with you if I release you and your dependents! Watch out! Trouble is right in front of you!
11. No! Go, you men only, and serve the Lord, for that is what you want.” Then Moses and Aaron were driven out of Pharaoh’s presence.
12. The Lord said to Moses, “Extend your hand over the land of Egypt for the locusts, that they may come up over the land of Egypt and eat everything that grows in the ground, everything that the hail has left.”
13. So Moses extended his staff over the land of Egypt, and then the Lord brought an east wind on the land all that day and all night. The morning came, and the east wind had brought up the locusts!
14. The locusts went up over all the land of Egypt and settled down in all the territory of Egypt. It was very severe; there had been no locusts like them before, nor will there be such ever again.
15. They covered the surface of all the ground, so that the ground became dark with them, and they ate all the vegetation of the ground and all the fruit of the trees that the hail had left. Nothing green remained on the trees or on anything that grew in the fields throughout the whole land of Egypt.
16. Then Pharaoh quickly summoned Moses and Aaron and said, “I have sinned against the Lord your God and against you!
17. So now, forgive my sin this time only, and pray to the Lord your God that he would only take this death away from me.”
18. Moses went out from Pharaoh and prayed to the Lord,
19. and the Lord turned a very strong west wind, and it picked up the locusts and blew them into the Red Sea. Not one locust remained in all the territory of Egypt.
20. But the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he did not release the Israelites.
21. The Lord said to Moses, “Extend your hand toward heaven so that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, a darkness so thick it can be felt.”
22. So Moses extended his hand toward heaven, and there was absolute darkness throughout the land of Egypt for three days.