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Second Example Resumed

23 Hence those unrighteous who lived a life of folly,
    you tormented through their own abominations.(A)
24 For they went far astray in the paths of error,
    taking for gods the worthless and disgusting among beasts,
    being deceived like senseless infants.(B)

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Second Example Resumed

18 [a]Besides, they worship the most loathsome beasts—(A)
    as regards stupidity, these are worse than the rest,[b]
19 For beasts are neither good-looking nor desirable;
    they have escaped both the approval of God and his blessing.(B)

Chapter 16

Therefore they[c] were fittingly punished by similar creatures,
    and were tormented by a swarm of insects.(C)

Footnotes

  1. 15:18–19 The author here returns (11:15; 12:23–27) to the main theme of chaps. 11–19, which was interrupted by the digression of 13:1–15:17.
  2. 15:18 Worse than the rest: this may mean that the creatures worshiped by the Egyptians (e.g., crocodiles, serpents, scarabs, etc.) were less intelligent than the general run of beasts.
  3. 16:1 They: the Egyptian idolaters, who are punished according to the principle laid down in 11:5, 15–16.

26 Then the Lord said to Moses: Go to Pharaoh and tell him:(A) Thus says the Lord: Let my people go to serve me. 27 If you refuse to let them go, then I will send a plague of frogs over all your territory. 28 The Nile will teem with frogs. They will come up and enter into your palace and into your bedroom and onto your bed, into the houses of your servants, too, and among your people, even into your ovens and your kneading bowls. 29 The frogs will come up over you and your people and all your servants.

Chapter 8

The Lord then spoke to Moses: Speak to Aaron: Stretch out your hand with your staff over the streams, the canals, and the ponds, and make frogs overrun the land of Egypt. So Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt, and the frogs came up and covered the land of Egypt. But the magicians did the same by their magic arts and made frogs overrun the land of Egypt.

Then Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said, “Pray to the Lord to remove the frogs from me and my people, and I will let the people go to sacrifice to the Lord.” Moses answered Pharaoh, “Please designate for me the time when I am to pray for you and your servants and your people, to get rid of the frogs from you and your houses. They will be left only in the Nile.” “Tomorrow,” he said. Then Moses replied, “It will be as you have said, so that you may know that there is none like the Lord, our God. The frogs will leave you and your houses, your servants and your people; they will be left only in the Nile.”

After Moses and Aaron left Pharaoh’s presence, Moses cried out to the Lord on account of the frogs that he had inflicted on Pharaoh; and the Lord did as Moses had asked. The frogs died off in the houses, the courtyards, and the fields. 10 Heaps of them were piled up, and the land stank. 11 But when Pharaoh saw there was a respite, he became obstinate and would not listen to them, just as the Lord had said.