“Then Yahweh said to Moses, ‘Pharaoh’s heart is hardened.  He refuses to let the people go.  Go to Pharaoh in the morning, as he is going out to the water.  Stand by at the river’s brink, and take in your hands the staff that was turned into a snake.  Say to him, `Yahweh, the God of the Hebrews, sent me to you, say, ‘Let my people go, that they may worship me in the wilderness.  But until now you have not listened.’   Thus says Yahweh, ‘By this you shall know that I am Yahweh.  See with the staff that is in my hand I will strike the water that is in the Nile, and it shall be turned to blood.  The fish in the river shall die.  The river itself shall stink.  The Egyptians shall be unable to drink water from the Nile.’  Yahweh said to Moses, ‘Say to Aaron, Take your staff and stretch out your hand over the waters of Egypt, over its rivers, their canals, and their ponds, and all its pools of water, so that they may become blood.  There shall be blood throughout the whole land of Egypt, even in vessels of wood and in vessels of stone.’”

Here comes the gory stuff, the ten plagues. Yahweh knew that Pharaoh had a hard heart, so he kept pounding away at the Egyptians.  Moses, this time alone, met Pharaoh at the Nile River bank with his staff.   You will not let my people go so I am going to show you with my magic wand.  He turns the Nile River into blood.  Then Aaron was told to stretch out his hands over all the waters in Egypt turn them into blood.  So we have a bloody mess.

“Moses and Aaron did just as Yahweh commanded.  In the sight of Pharaoh and his officials, he lifted up the staff and struck the water in the Nile River, and all the water in the Nile River turned into blood.  The fish in the Nile died.  The Nile River stank so that the Egyptians could not drink its water.  There was blood throughout the whole land of Egypt.  But the magicians of Egypt did the same by their secret arts.  So Pharaoh’s heart remained hardened, and he would not listen to them, as Yahweh had said. Pharaoh turned and went into his house.  He did not take even this to heart. All the Egyptians had to dig along the Nile for water to drink, for they could not drink the water of the Nile River.”

However, the Egyptian magicians were able to do the same thing.  Everyone had to dig water wells for drinking water.  A natural explanation may have been the fact that the Nile River has red particles of earth in it.  Anyway, remember, it’s a miraculous story. Pharaoh was unmoved, as the water supply was polluted.