This is meant to be a fun reading (with some commentary) for all ages through Scripture. Please do not take this as a substitute for reading through the Bible on your own.
Previously, God sends Moses and Aaron to Pharaoh with a simple request: let the Israelites go so they can hold a religious festival for the Lord. God's plan starts small and with actions that Pharaoh not only would have understood, but his own people would have been able to replicate. God does this by giving the commands to Moses who then will give the command to Aaron.
The first action to prove God's power comes from a simple rod. Through Moses, God tells Aaron to lay down his staff. When he does so, it becomes a snake. Pharaoh then gathers his own men who thrown down their own staffs which become snakes as well. This was a trick that would have been well-known in Egypt, which is why God starts with it. Yet God still shows that God is mightier than the Egyptians, for Aaron's staff-now-snake swallows up the staffs-now-snakes of Pharaoh's men.
Pharaoh is not yet impressed, though as the Bible makes clear, God is with Moses, Aaron, and all the Israelites throughout this time. Ultimately, God is in control.
With this starts the plagues upon Egypt. Each plague would have been a sign of God's dominion and control, even over the very realms of the supposed gods of Egypt. It would have shown that God is the only True God above all other gods.
The first plague occurs at the River Nile. There God has Moses call on Pharaoh to let God's people go. God then has Moses and Aaron take the staff, the same staff that turned into the snake, and strike the River. At that point the water turned to blood, making it impossible to drink or sustain life. This was another sign Pharaoh would have recognized, for his own men could reproduce the same work. Thus Pharaoh remained unimpressed.
A week later, God calls on Moses to once again cry out to Pharaoh to let God's people go. This time God has Moses and Aaron stretch out the staff and call forth all the frogs from all the bodies of water in Egypt. They came and covered the whole land. Yet Pharaoh's men could do the same, so Pharaoh remained unimpressed.
Eventually, though, Pharaoh conceded. He asked Moses and Aaron to take the frogs away. If they did so, he said, he would let the Israelites go and worship the Lord in the wilderness. Yet when Moses prayed to God to remove the frogs, and God did it, Pharaoh changed his mind and now refused to let them go. God knew all this would happen though, for God was still in control.
Next, God called on Moses and Aaron to strike the dust with the staff. That dust became some type of bugs that covered everything in Egypt, including the humans. Pharaoh once again turned to his men to try to recreate what happened, but they failed. Yet even with this defeat, Pharaoh would not budge.
After that, God told Moses to meet Pharaoh as he went by the water. Moses was to warn Pharaoh that a swarm of flies would come, impacting only the Egyptians and not God's people. These flies would remain until Pharaoh chose to let the Israelites go to the wilderness to worship the Lord.
It happened just as Moses said, so Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron. He said that if Moses would pray to God and have the flies sent away, the Israelites could go and worship the Lord. Moses prayed and God sent the flies away. Once that happened, Pharaoh changed his mind and did not let the Israelites go after all.
God again sent Moses to Pharaoh, asking that the Israelites be let go and telling him what would happen if Pharaoh once again refused. This time, all of Egypt's livestock would get deadly diseases. Yet once again, God would distinguish between the Israelites and the Egyptians so that none of the livestock for God's people would be harmed. It happened as God said, yet Pharaoh's heart would not budge.
Next, God spoke to Moses and Aaron and had them throw dust up in the air before Pharaoh. This dust caused boils to form on the skin of all those in Egypt. Pharaoh's men again couldn't replicate what happened because of the boils on their own skin. Yet Pharaoh still wouldn't budge.
The next plague was a storm of thunder, hail, and fire from the sky. It hit everywhere in Egypt so that it could not be avoided, everywhere but the places where the Israelites lived.
Pharaoh finally caved in at this point, admitting that he is in the wrong, and allowed Moses and Aaron to take the Israelites and go. This time, Moses waits to lift his hands to end the plague only once they are outside the city. Yet once again when all is well, Pharaoh hardens his heart and forces the people back in. God is not worried though, telling Moses that this will be the chance to show the Egyptians who God really is.
The next plague comes in the form of locusts who consume all that is left after the great hail storm. Pharaoh's own officials start to ask when he will relent, and for a moment Pharaoh does. Though he takes his word back and refuses to let the people go once the plague is over, just as before.
After this, Moses lifts his arms up and a plague of darkness covers the land. Pharaoh again relents for only a moment. Then he tells Moses he never wants to see him again. Moses agrees with what Pharaoh has said. He will not come with a warning about a plague to Pharaoh ever again.
Here comes the final plague, the one which will lead to the celebration and remembrance called the Passover. In this plague, all the firstborn of the Egyptians will die, yet the Israelites will live. God calls on the Hebrews, through Moses and Aaron, to gather together in their homes, dressed and ready to leave at a moment's notice. They are to take a young, unblemished (that is, without any flaws) lamb and eat it for supper, along with unleavened bread (bread that has not been leavened because the process to do so would take some time and they are in a hurry). The blood of the lamb is to be placed on the doors of all their houses, so that God will pass over them and their firstborns will live.
God calls on them to celebrate this feast as the start of the year for the Israelites. They are to celebrate the Passover meal every year following so that they may remember what it is that God did for them in the land of Egypt.
Finally Pharaoh relents. He summons Moses and Aaron and tells them the Israelites are now free to go, so all the Israelites gathered together. Taking their possessions, provisions for the wilderness, and anything else the frightened Egyptians would offer them, they left. God remained with the people and showed them this by appearing as a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night to guide them on the way.
The Israelites made their way to the Red Sea. At this point in time, Pharaoh, true to form, changed his mind once again. He went out with his men, horses, and chariots to pursue the Israelites.
God was still with the Israelites though. The pillar of cloud moved in front of Pharaoh's army to protect the Israelites. Then Moses stretched his hands over the Red Sea, and God parted the waters. The Israelites made it safely to the other side of the shore.
The Egyptians continued to pursue the Israelites, even through the parted waters. Yet when the Israelites made it over, God told Moses to stretch his hands back over the sea. The waters came back, drowning the army of the Egyptians. The Israelites would not have to worry about them again. In celebration, Moses and his sister, the Prophet Miriam, each composed a song about the Lord's triumph that day.
However, though the Israelites were safe from Egypt, they still had the wilderness to survive, and the Israelites would complain quite a bit along the way. Their first trial was the water at Marah. Just as Marah means "bitter", so the water tasted when the Israelites tried to drink it. Yet when Moses cried out to God for help, the Lord showed him some wood that he was able to throw in the water to make it taste better.
God made it clear at this time that God would be with them. All they needed to do was listen to God and they would be fine.