Saturday, July 21, 2012

Exodus 7:14-24 and Mark 6:30-44 (NLT)

Exodus 7:14-24
The Plague of Blood

14  Then the Lord said to Moses, “Pharaoh’s heart is stubborn, and he still refuses to let the people go. 
15  So go to Pharaoh in the morning as he goes down to the river. Stand on the bank of the Nile and meet him there. Be sure to take along the staff that turned into a snake. 
16  Then announce to him, ‘The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, has sent me to tell you, “Let my people go, so they can worship me in the wilderness.” Until now, you have refused to listen to him. 
17  So this is what the Lord says: “I will show you that I am the Lord.” Look! I will strike the water of the Nile with this staff in my hand, and the river will turn to blood. 
18  The fish in it will die, and the river will stink. The Egyptians will not be able to drink any water from the Nile.’”
19  Then the Lord said to Moses: “Tell Aaron, ‘Take your staff and raise your hand over the waters of Egypt—all its rivers, canals, ponds, and all the reservoirs. Turn all the water to blood. Everywhere in Egypt the water will turn to blood, even the water stored in wooden bowls and stone pots.’”
20  So Moses and Aaron did just as the Lord commanded them. As Pharaoh and all of his officials watched, Aaron raised his staff and struck the water of the Nile. Suddenly, the whole river turned to blood!
21  The fish in the river died, and the water became so foul that the Egyptians couldn’t drink it. There was blood everywhere throughout the land of Egypt. 
22  But again the magicians of Egypt used their magic, and they, too, turned water into blood. So Pharaoh’s heart remained hard. He refused to listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the Lord had predicted. 
23  Pharaoh returned to his palace and put the whole thing out of his mind. 
24  Then all the Egyptians dug along the riverbank to find drinking water, for they couldn’t drink the water from the Nile.

Mark 6:30-44
Jesus Feeds the Five Thousand

30  The apostles returned to Jesus from their ministry tour and told him all they had done and taught. 
31  Then Jesus said, “Let’s go off by ourselves to a quiet place and rest awhile.” He said this because there were so many people coming and going that Jesus and his apostles didn’t even have time to eat.
32  So they left by boat for a quiet place, where they could be alone. 
33  But many people recognized them and saw them leaving, and people from many towns ran ahead along the shore and got there ahead of them. 
34  Jesus saw the huge crowd as he stepped from the boat, and he had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things.
35  Late in the afternoon his disciples came to him and said, “This is a remote place, and it’s already getting late. 
36  Send the crowds away so they can go to the nearby farms and villages and buy something to eat.”
37  But Jesus said, “You feed them.” “With what?” they asked. “We’d have to work for months to earn enough money to buy food for all these people!”
38  “How much bread do you have?” he asked. “Go and find out.”  They came back and reported, “We have five loaves of bread and two fish.”
39  Then Jesus told the disciples to have the people sit down in groups on the green grass.
40  So they sat down in groups of fifty or a hundred.
41  Jesus took the five loaves and two fish, looked up toward heaven, and blessed them. Then, breaking the loaves into pieces, he kept giving the bread to the disciples so they could distribute it to the people. He also divided the fish for everyone to share.
42  They all ate as much as they wanted,
43  and afterward, the disciples picked up twelve baskets of leftover bread and fish.
44  A total of 5,000 men and their families were fed from those loaves!

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