9. “All right,” Moses answered. “You choose the time when I am to pray for the frogs to stop bothering you, your officials, and your people, and for them to leave your houses and be found only in the river.”
10. “Do it tomorrow!” the king replied.“As you wish,” Moses agreed. “Then everyone will discover that there is no god like the Lord,
11. and frogs will no longer be found anywhere, except in the Nile.”
12. After Moses and Aaron left the palace, Moses begged the Lord to do something about the frogs he had sent as punishment for the king.
13. The Lord listened to Moses, and frogs died everywhere—in houses, yards, and fields.
14. The dead frogs were placed in piles, and the whole country began to stink.
15. But when the king saw that things were now better, he again did just as the Lord had said and stubbornly refused to listen to Moses and Aaron.
16. The Lord said to Moses, “Command Aaron to strike the ground with his walking stick, and everywhere in Egypt the dust will turn into gnats.”
17. They obeyed, and when Aaron struck the ground with the stick, gnats started swarming on people and animals. In fact, every speck of dust in Egypt turned into a gnat.
18. When the magicians tried to use their secret powers to do this, they failed, and gnats stayed on people and animals.
19. The magicians told the king, “God has done this.”But, as the Lord had said, the king was too stubborn to listen.