20. Moses and Aaron did as the Lord had commanded. In front of Pharaoh and his officials, Aaron raised his staff and struck the Nile. All the water in the river turned into blood.
21. The fish in the Nile died, and it smelled so bad that the Egyptians couldn’t drink any water from the river. There was blood everywhere in Egypt.
22. But the Egyptian magicians did the same thing using their magic spells. So Pharaoh continued to be stubborn and would not listen to Moses and Aaron, as the Lord had predicted.
23. Pharaoh turned and went back to his palace. He dismissed the entire matter from his mind.
24. All the Egyptians dug along the Nile for water to drink because they couldn’t drink any of the water from the river.