15. For by now I could have stretched out my hand and struck you and your people with plague, and you would have been destroyed from the earth.
16. But for this purpose I have caused you to stand: to show you my strength, and so that my name may be declared in all the earth.
17. You are still exalting yourself against my people by not releasing them.
18. I am going to cause very severe hail to rain down about this time tomorrow, such hail as has never occurred in Egypt from the day it was founded until now.
19. So now, send instructions to gather your livestock and all your possessions in the fields to a safe place. Every person or animal caught in the field and not brought into the house – the hail will come down on them, and they will die!”’”
20. Those of Pharaoh’s servants who feared the word of the Lord hurried to bring their servants and livestock into the houses,
21. but those who did not take the word of the Lord seriously left their servants and their cattle in the field.
22. Then the Lord said to Moses, “Extend your hand toward the sky that there may be hail in all the land of Egypt, on people and on animals, and on everything that grows in the field in the land of Egypt.”
23. When Moses extended his staff toward the sky, the Lord sent thunder and hail, and fire fell to the earth; so the Lord caused hail to rain down on the land of Egypt.
24. Hail fell and fire mingled with the hail; the hail was so severe that there had not been any like it in all the land of Egypt since it had become a nation.
25. The hail struck everything in the open fields, both people and animals, throughout all the land of Egypt. The hail struck everything that grows in the field, and it broke all the trees of the field to pieces.
26. Only in the land of Goshen, where the Israelites lived, was there no hail.
27. So Pharaoh sent and summoned Moses and Aaron and said to them, “I have sinned this time! The Lord is righteous, and I and my people are guilty.
28. Pray to the Lord, for the mighty thunderings and hail are too much! I will release you and you will stay no longer.”