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Spiritual Gifts, Volume 3
heart was hardened, and he hearkened not unto them, as the Lord had
said.”
The Lord again commanded Moses and Aaron to say unto Pharaoh,
“Let my people go, that they may serve me; else, if thou wilt not let
my people go, behold, I will send swarms of flies upon thee, and upon
thy servants, and upon thy people, and into the houses, and the houses
of the Egyptians shall be full of swarms of flies, and also the ground
whereon they are. And I will sever in that day the land of Goshen, in
which my people dwell, that no swarms of flies shall be there, to the
end thou mayest know that I am the Lord in the midst of the earth. And
I will put a division between my people and thy people. Tomorrow
shall this sign be. And the Lord did so. And there came a grievous
swarm of flies into the house of Pharaoh, and into his servants’ houses,
and into all the land of Egypt. The land was corrupted by reason of
the swarms of flies. And Pharaoh called for Moses and for Aaron,
and said, Go ye, sacrifice to your God in the land. And Moses said,
It is not meet so to do; for we shall sacrifice the abomination of the
Egyptians to the Lord our God. Lo, shall we sacrifice the abomination
of the Egyptians before their eyes, and will they not stone us? We will
go three days’ journey into the wilderness, and sacrifice to the Lord
our God as he shall command us.”
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The Egyptians worshiped certain beasts, and they regarded it an
unpardonable offense to have one of these beasts slain. And if one
of their objects of worship were slain, even accidentally, the person’s
life alone could answer for the offense. Moses shows Pharaoh the
impossibility of their sacrificing to God in the land of Egypt, in the
sight of the Egyptians, for they might select for their offering some
one of the beasts which they considered sacred.
Moses again proposed to go three days’ journey into the wilderness.
The king consented while under the chastening hand of God. “And
Pharaoh said, I will let you go, that ye may sacrifice to the Lord your
God in the wilderness; only ye shall not go very far away. Entreat for
me. And Moses said, Behold, I go out from thee, and I will entreat
the Lord that the swarms of flies may depart from Pharaoh, from his
servants, and from his people, tomorrow; but let not Pharaoh deal
deceitfully any more in not letting the people go to sacrifice to the
Lord. And Moses went from Pharaoh and entreated the Lord. And the
Lord did according to the word of Moses; and he removed the swarms