when at first you don't succeed...

Good morning sisters and brothers,
We skip forward in the story a little bit. Moses protests that he's not the right guy for the job, but God promises to be with him and to send Moses' brother Aaron to help him. Moses and Aaron go to the elders of Israel with God's message and then go to Pharaoh. Their first meeting, as we see, goes disastrously wrong, but that is not the end of the story. Sometimes what looks like a dead end or worse can be the beginning of something good.
God bless,
Sam

Exodus 5:1-9

Afterward Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Let my people go, so that they may celebrate a festival to me in the wilderness.’“ 2But Pharaoh said, “Who is the Lord, that I should heed him and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, and I will not let Israel go.”



3Then they said, “The God of the Hebrews has revealed himself to us; let us go a three days’ journey into the wilderness to sacrifice to the Lord our God, or he will fall upon us with pestilence or sword.” 4But the king of Egypt said to them, “Moses and Aaron, why are you taking the people away from their work? Get to your labors!” 5Pharaoh continued, “Now they are more numerous than the people of the land and yet you want them to stop working!”



6That same day Pharaoh commanded the taskmasters of the people, as well as their supervisors, 7“You shall no longer give the people straw to make bricks, as before; let them go and gather straw for themselves. 8But you shall require of them the same quantity of bricks as they have made previously; do not diminish it, for they are lazy; that is why they cry, ‘Let us go and offer sacrifice to our God.’ 9Let heavier work be laid on them; then they will labor at it and pay no attention to deceptive words.”