Two of Aaron’s sons, Nadab and Abihu, offered God some “unauthorized” fire. God didn’t like that, so he set them on fire and killed them. Moses got a couple of their cousins, Mishael and Elzaphan, to carry the dead guys out of the tent. Then he told Aaron’s other sons, Eleasar and Ithamar, not to tear their clothes or wear their hair loose or they would die. Then he told them if they left the tent they would die.

Moses told Eleazar and Ithamar to take the grain offering and eat it (unleavened!) beside the altar. Then he got mad at them for not eating a goat or something.

Original text

God said to Moses, “Since you broke the first tablets, we’ll have to do this all over again. Cut two more tablets and meet me on the mountain in the morning. Come alone.” So Moses went, and God started talking about how loving and forgiving he could be if only the humans would behave themselves. He said, “I hate sinners and I will punish them until they’re dead. Then I’ll punish their children and their grandchildren. I figure by the fourth generation I’ll have probably grown bored.

“So here’s what we’ll do,” he continued. “I’ll get rid of all the Amorites, Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. And when you guys get there, you’ll tear down their pillars and altars because I’ve changed my name to Jealous and I don’t want you worshiping any other gods. And let’s just do a quick review since you people are pretty stupid and can’t seem to remember simple rules.” So God repeated all the rules from before, which took another forty days and forty nights during which Moses didn’t have anything to eat or drink.

When Moses came down from the mountain, his face was glowing because he’d been talking to God. He told everyone what God had said, and then he put a veil over his shiny face. From that point on, Moses would remove the veil whenever he chatted with God, and after relaying God’s message to the people he would put it back on again.

Original text

The people went to Aaron and said, “Your stupid brother brought us out here to the desert, then he went up into a mountain and we haven’t seen him since. We need you to make us some gods.” So Aaron gathered up everyone’s gold and made a calf out of it with a graving tool. Everyone suddenly became convinced the cow brought them out of Egypt and they decided to have a feast in its honor. God told Moses he’d better watch out because the Israelites were about to die a fiery and wrathful death, but Moses pleaded with him and said people were going to think he just brought them to the desert to kill them. God didn’t like people to gossip about him, so he decided not to kill anyone that day.

Moses took his tablets of testimony and finally came down from the mountain. When he got to camp, he found the people singing to the stupid calf. He threw down the tablets, breaking them, and then destroyed the damn thing. He asked Aaron what he could possibly have been thinking, and Aaron was all, “These people were evil! They demanded a god, so I took their gold and threw it in the fire, and that cow was what came out!”

Moses looked around and saw that the whole camp was in chaos. He announced that everyone who wanted to be on Team God should gather around him, but only the Levites came. Moses told them to take their swords and start killing. So that’s what they did. About three thousand people died, but that wasn’t enough for God. He sent down a plague for good measure and promised this sin would be visited upon them again one day.

Original text

Three months after leaving Egypt, the Israelites came to Sinai and set up camp. During one of their daily chats, God told Moses to pass on a message: “Remind them that I rescued them from slavery. If they obey me and be good little Hebrews, they’ll be my favorite people in the whole world.” Then God told Moses to make sure the people washed their clothes because he was coming to see them in three days. Also during those three days, there was to be no sex, I guess; Moses told the men not to touch any women.

On the third day, it was all thundery and cloudy up on top of Mount Sinai, and a loud trumpet blast scared the Israelites. It was also all smoky up there because God had rocketed down to the mountain in his fire boots. Moses gathered everyone together to stand at the foot of the mountain while he climbed up to talk to God. When Moses got to the top, God told him to go back down and come back with Aaron, but to make sure everyone else knew that if they tried to climb the mountain and see God, they would die.

Original text

A month and a half after leaving Egypt, the Israelites came to the wilderness of Sin, between Elim and Sinai. They all started whining to Moses and Aaron about how hungry they were and how they wished they would have just stayed in Egypt. Moses told them it was God who took them out of Egypt, not him, and the big guy could hear their complaining and was going to give them meat at twilight and bread in the morning.

That night, a bunch of quail came along and covered the camp. The next morning, there was something all over the ground. Moses told them it was bread and everyone should gather as much as they could, but they should not leave any of it leftover until morning. God was testing them, see, but they didn’t know that and they were afraid to eat it all and not have any left the next day. God was pissed that they didn’t trust him, so he made the leftovers grow worms and smell bad.

This went on for five days. On the sixth day, Moses told everyone that God wanted them to gather as much as they could and put aside as much as they wanted because there would be no bread on the ground in the morning. Of course nobody did this because God had just gotten them trained to not leave any leftovers. So when people went out on the seventh morning to find the stuff, God got mad and complained to Moses about people working on the Sabbath.

Incidentally, the stuff was called manna and the Israelites ate it for forty years, until they came to Canaan. But that’s getting ahead of ourselves.

Original text

God, not content to just let shit go, made Pharaoh forget that the Israelites left Egypt under his own Pharoah-cious order. Pharaoh was suddenly pissed at them for leaving, so he rounded up the troops and they all went after the Hebrews. The Israelites got pretty scared when the Egyptians found them camping at the seaside (by Pi-hahiroth in front of Baal-zephon, if you’re interested) and they yelled at Moses for taking them away from their happy lives of slavery and oppression. Moses said, “Don’t worry, God’s got our back.”

God told Moses to point his magic wand – I mean his staff – at the sea to part the waters so the Israelites could walk on dry ground all the way across. The Egyptians followed, and when all of Israel had crossed, God told Moses to put the water back where it belonged. And thus, the Egyptians drowned.

Original text

Bonus: One of my favorite Far Side cartoons…

God told Moses and Aaron to tell the Israelites to get their lambs ready because there was going to be some sacrificing going down at twilight on the fourteenth. After killing their lambs, the Israelites were to put blood on their doorposts and to eat the meat that night after roasting it on the fire. He made sure to tell Moses to tell them it would taste best with unleavened bread and bitter herbs, and if any of it was left over in the morning, they should burn it. He also said he’d prefer it if they ate it while wearing sandals and belts and holding a staff in one hand. God said the blood on the door was so he’d know not to kill any babies in that house, but I don’t know what the deal is with the sandals and belts. He also wanted them to ask the Egyptians for silver and gold.

But that wasn’t all. God explained that this was to become a tradition called Passover and it would last for seven days. For all seven days, anyone eating leaven would be cut off from Israel. A holy assembly would be held on the first and seventh days, and nobody was allowed to work for the whole week. Then he talked about his hatred for leavened food some more. Moses passed on God’s message and the Israelites did as they were told.

God went and killed the first born child of every Egyptian, and Pharaoh got pissed and told Israel to get out. The Egyptians gave the Israelites all the silver and gold they asked for and told them to hurry up and leave before God killed the rest of them. That’s what they did. All six hundred thousand of them (and that’s not counting women and children) traveled on foot from Rameses to Succoth. When they left, the people of Israel had been in Egypt for 430 years.

To keep them occupied during the journey, God yapped at Moses and Aaron about all the other rules about Passover: Only Israelites could take part in the feast, no foreigners. Slaves could eat it, but only if they’d been bought and circumcised. They couldn’t break the lamb’s bones or take it outside the house. Strangers could take part, but only if they’d been circumcised.

What is God’s obsession with foreskin?

Original text

Before he left, Moses told Pharaoh the firstborn child of every Egyptian was going to die. Pharaoh was still being pretty stubborn (because God was still hardening his heart), so he refused.

Original text

God threatened Pharaoh with locusts, so Pharaoh said Israel could go worship God, but that only the men could go. Well, that was the wrong thing to say. The locusts came and ate all the plants and filled everyone’s houses. Oh, that is so gross. Pharaoh once again cried uncle, but changed his mind as soon as the locusts were gone.

God made the sun disappear for a few days, except in Goshen where the Israelites lived. God made sure to keep Pharaoh’s heart hardened, though, and he still wouldn’t let Israel go. Pharaoh did, however, tell Moses he was going to kill him next time he showed his face.

Original text

For his fifth trick, God killed all the Egyptians’ livestock, but not the livestock that belonged to Israel. Then he made boils break out over every man and beast in Egypt. When Pharaoh still insisted on being a jerk, God made hail fall all over Egypt and kill any animal or slave that hadn’t been brought to shelter. Pharaoh once again said Israel could go, but he changed his mind as soon as it stopped hailing.

For fuck’s sake, God. Stop hardening his heart already. YOU ARE RUINING EGYPT.

Original text