The Book of Exodus Chapters 11 & 12. ESV Version.

Welcome back to Reading with Ben! Today April 30, 2022, and Episode #06! Exodus Chapters 11  & 12. Chapter 11 Prepare for the Final Plague God lets Moses know that something big is coming. God instructs Moses that the Israelites should all ask their neighbors for silver and gold. Moses tells Pharaoh that God will claim every Egyptian firstborn (the prince, the slaves' first sons, the animals' firstborn—everyone) at midnight. That means they'll die. Yikes. And guess what? Pharaoh refuses to let the people go after God hardens his heart again. Chapter 12 Everybody Out! This is it. The big one. God and the destroyer kill every firstborn Egyptian, from the prince right on down to the firstborn calves. Exodus tells us in 12:30 that, "There was not a house without someone dead." Grisly. The Egyptians, including Pharaoh, have had enough and tell the Israelites to get lost ASAP. The Israelites leave so quickly that their bread doesn't rise in the oven, but they do save enough time to "plunder" the Egyptians of all their gold and silver (12:36). Exodus tells us that 600,000 men, plus some unmentioned number of women and children, left Egypt at the end of 430 years in that land. Time out: 600,000?! The world population at the time was less than 50 million people, so we're talking at least 2% of the entire planet's population. That's a lot of people.