Welcome back to the Jesse Tree on the Catholic Sprouts podcast. Today is the second Sunday of Advent.

This week, we will be meeting people from the books of Exodus and judges. Most important among

these people is Moses, with whom we will spend today and tomorrow. We enter the story today in Egypt, where the

Israelites people have toiled as slaves for over 400 years. The nation first arrived in Egypt

when Joseph, do you remember him from last week, when Joseph was in charge and able to save his family from starvation.

The family stayed in Egypt, grew, and eventually was enslaved by the Egyptians.

The Israelites called out to God who heard their cries and sent Moses to deliver them.

Listen now to the story of Moses and the Passover from the book of Exodus.

Exodus chapter 10, 27, 11, 1, 4 through 7, 12, 29 through 32. But the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart,

and he was unwilling to let them go. The Lord said to Moses,

I will bring one more plague upon Pharaoh and upon Egypt. Afterwards, he will let you go from here.

Indeed, when he let you go, he will drive you away. Moses said, thus says the Lord,

about midnight I will go out through Egypt. Every firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die,

from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sits on his throne to the firstborn of the female slave who is

behind the handmill, and all the firstborn of the livestock. Then there will be a loud cry throughout the

whole land of Egypt, such as has never been or ever will be again. But not a dog shall growl or at any of the Israelites,

not at people, not at animals, so that you may know that the Lord makes a distinction between

Egypt and Israel. At midnight, the Lord struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt,

from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the prisoner who was in the dungeon and all the firstborn of the livestock.

Pharaoh rose in the night, he and all of his officials, and all the Egyptians, and there was a loud cry in Egypt, for there was not a house without someone dead.

Then he summoned Moses and Aaron in the night and said,

Rise up, go away from my people, both you and the Israelites.

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