God’s next trick was to make frogs come out of the river and cover Egypt. Pharaoh wasn’t much impressed but he didn’t like those frogs. He told Moses and Aaron that if their god could make the frogs go away, he’d let Israel go. So God took away the frogs, but Pharaoh was totally lying because  he was a jackass.

The third plague was gnats. All over everything. Yuck.

The fourth plague was flies. They covered every man and beast in Egypt, but not in Goshen where the Israelites lived. Pharaoh said they could go ahead and do their sacrificing, but Moses told him a sacrifice wasn’t something they could just do out on the street somewhere. They needed three days to go out into the wilderness to do it right. Pharaoh said fine, as soon as the flies were gone. So God made the flies go away, but of course the Pharaoh was lying.

Original text

God told Moses to go talk to the Pharaoh, even though God planned to harden Pharaoh’s heart so he wouldn’t let them go. Jeez, I feel like we’ve been having this conversation for a month. So Moses and Aaron went and performed the magic tricks God taught them and said all the words God told them to say, but of course the Pharaoh said Israel had to stay put.

God went to Moses and told him to meet the Pharaoh at the Nile the next morning. At God’s command, Moses used his walking stick to turn the water of the Nile into blood. The fish died and the river smelled bad so the Egyptians were screwed. But I guess there were magicians in Egypt who could do the same thing, so Pharaoh was not impressed and he told Moses and Aaron to get lost. That was the first plague of many that God was about to unleash on those rotten Egyptians.

Original text

Moses said, “But Goooood, the Hebrews won’t believe that I actually spoke to you.” So God turned Moses’ walking stick into a snake and then made the skin on his hand turn white. He told him to do those tricks in front of the Hebrews and if they still didn’t believe, he could take some water from the Nile and pour it on the ground and God would turn it into blood.

Moses said, “But Goooood, I don’t have the language skills for this kind of thing. I’m not very smart.” God said, “Hey, I made that brain of yours and I can take it away. Now go do what I tell you and I’ll teach you how to speak correctly.”

Moses said, “But Goooood, I just got married and stuff. Please send someone else.” God said, “Shut up, you whiny brat. Look, take your brother, Aaron. He’ll do all the talking and you’ll do all the magic tricks. Everyone will believe you.”

So Moses went to his father-in-law and said he had to go take care of some things in Egypt. He packed up his wife and kids and left. God told Moses, “Now, when you see the Pharaoh, make sure you do all the magic tricks I taught you. But I’m going to harden his heart and he won’t let the Israelites go. Then I want you to tell him that I’m going to kill his firstborn son if he doesn’t let them go.” Moses said, “Couldn’t you just NOT harden his heart in the first place?” and God told him to shut up and do as he was told.

Moses stopped at a lodging place on the way to Egypt, and God came along and tried to kill him (God, Moses can’t do your bidding if he’s dead). Zipporah, clever girl she was, quickly circumcised her son and touched Moses’ feet with the foreskin (ew) and said, “Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me!” God stopped trying to kill Moses after that. What the hell?

God went and told Aaron to meet Moses at his mountain and told him all the right things to say. Then Moses and Aaron went and put on their magic show for the elders of Israel. They totally bought it.

Original text

At about this time, Judah went and had sex with some chick whose father was named Shua. The woman herself has no name, but she had three sons: Er, Onan and Shelah. When Er was old enough to get married, Judah found a wife for him named Tamar. But God didn’t like Er so he killed him. Judah told Onan it was his duty to have sex with Tamar so she could raise offspring for Er. But Onan didn’t like the idea of his own kid being thought of as Er’s kid, so whenever he had sex with Tamar, he used the pull out method to keep from getting her pregnant. Well, God didn’t like that, so he killed Onan. Judah figured Tamar was bad luck so he told her to just remain a widow.

After Judah’s wife died, he went up to Timnah to shear his sheep. Tamar, sick of not being able to have any children just because God didn’t like her husbands, disguised herself as a prostitute and went to meet Judah on the road to Timnah. Since her face was covered, he didn’t recognize her. So they had sex and then she went home and he went about his business with the sheep shearing. About three months later, someone told Judah that Tamar had cheated on her husbands’ memories and was pregnant. Judah ordered her to be burned, but Tamar said, “Hey, remember that prostitute? That was me.” Judah said, “Damn, I should have let Shelah have her.” Tamar gave birth to twins, Perez and Zerah.

Original text

God hadn’t acted like a jerk for a while, so one day he told Abraham to take Isaac into the mountains and set him on fire. Abraham said, “Sure thing, God.” He and Isaac set out with a donkey and a couple of servants, and on the third day Abraham was feeling pretty confident that the place to do it was just around the bend. He told his servants to wait with the donkey, and he and Isaac kept walking. Isaac suddenly realized there was no lamb for the offering, but Abraham said, “Don’t worry, God will provide us with one.”

When they came to the place God told him about, Abraham built the alter and then tied up Isaac and laid him on top of it. He had a knife and was just about to stab Isaac when God said, “Okay, good enough. I see you love me enough to actually kill your son. I’m proud of you, Abe. Take Isaac down from there. Here, kill this ram instead.” Abraham did as he was told and offered up the ram that had suddenly appeared behind him. Isaac didn’t talk to Abraham all the way home.

God brought Abraham news from the old country: his brother, Nahor, had fathered some kids. Their names were Uz, Buz, Kemuel, Chesed, Hazo, Pildash, Jidlaph and Bethuel. Nahor had also had a bunch of kids with his concubine, Reumah: Tebah, Gaham, Tahash and Maacah.

Original text