Cursed until needed then cursed again.

Stone Tools Are "Most Important Discovery" in a Half Century -- and a Score for Intelligent Design

David Klinghoffer May 21, 2015 3:36 AM

The evolution-related story of the hour is the discovery of stone tools in Kenya predating, by 700,000 years, the previously known earliest such handmade tools. From Live Science:

The oldest handmade stone tools discovered yet predate any known humans and may have been wielded by an as-yet-unknown species, researchers say.

The 3.3-million-year-old stone artifacts are the first direct evidence that early human ancestors may have possessed the mental abilities needed to figure out how to make razor-sharp stone tools. The discovery also rewrites the book on the kind of environmental and evolutionary pressures that drove the emergence of toolmaking.

A team reports in Nature:

Human evolutionary scholars have long supposed that the earliest stone tools were made by the genus Homo and that this technological development was directly linked to climate change and the spread of savannah grasslands. New fieldwork in West Turkana, Kenya, has identified evidence of much earlier hominin technological behaviour. We report the discovery of Lomekwi 3, a 3.3-million-year-old archaeological site where in situ stone artefacts occur in spatiotemporal association with Pliocene hominin fossils in a wooded palaeoenvironment. The Lomekwi 3 knappers, with a developing understanding of stone's fracture properties, combined core reduction with battering activities. Given the implications of the Lomekwi 3 assemblage for models aiming to converge environmental change, hominin evolution and technological origins, we propose for it the name 'Lomekwian', which predates the Oldowan by 700,000 years and marks a new beginning to the known archaeological record.

There are the usual insistences that this rewrites the book of human evolution, as here, noted by Science Daily:

"The whole site's surprising, it just rewrites the book on a lot of things that we thought were true," said geologist Chris Lepre of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and Rutgers University, a co-author of the paper who precisely dated the artifacts.

We're told it's the "most important discovery" in a half century. From BBC News:

Dr Ignacio de la Torre, from University College London's Institute of Archaeology, described this as "a game-changing" find.

"It's the most important discovery in the last 50 years," he told BBC News.

"It suggests that species like Australopithecus might have been intelligent enough to make stone tools -- that they had the cognitive and manipulative abilities to carry tasks like this out."

Listen, let's grant them everything they say, until the next time the Book of Origins is rewritten yet again. Here's the interesting thing. The tools don't look like much -- see here for a gallery of images. If you stubbed your toe on one, wandering the badlands of West Turkana, would you look down in wonder or kick it aside?

Most likely kick it aside. This is not Paley's pocket watch we're talking about. The discrimination that they are tools was made via a design inference, and the media coverage is clear about this -- they just don't call it by that name. From the New York Times story:

Dr. [Erella] Hovers and other scientists not involved in the new research said the dating of the material appears to be solid and the objects are deliberately produced tools, not scraps of rock broken by accident or natural causes.

"Because the sediments in these layers are fine-grained, and a flake found by the authors could be fitted back onto the core from which it had been detached," Dr. Hovers said, "it is unlikely that the tools accumulated through stream activity or that substantial disturbance of the sediments occurred after the tools had been discarded."

From the article at Science Daily:

"This is a momentous and well-researched discovery," said paleoanthropologist Bernard Wood of George Washington University, who was not involved in the study. "I have seen some of these artifacts in the flesh, and I am convinced they were fashioned deliberately."

I don't doubt that the "tools" are really tools, nor do I have reason to doubt the age assigned to them. But notice the subjective quality of Bernard Wood's assurance: He's seen them "in the flesh," so you can take his word for it. Erella Hovers finds it "unlikely" that the rocks are the product of natural or random processes, like erosion through "stream activity."

The tools are recognized as tools because they triggered an inference to intelligence design. The difference between this and ID as practiced by the best-known ID advocates is that theorists like William Dembski apply a rigorous objective set of standard for declaring an object "designed." Dembski doesn't expect you'll be impressed that he's seen whatever it is "in the flesh."

So the most significant archeological find pertaining to human origins in fifty years hinges on ID. Again, I am simply taking news reports at face value. As our colleague ENV observed recently, "Many scientists claim intelligent design is not science, until they have to use it. Then they find it very helpful.

Biology as tech/Biology as art

The Giraffe as Artwork

Granville Sewell May 19, 2015 3:46 AM |

German biologist Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig studied mutations for over twenty years at the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research in Cologne. Based on that research, he wrote a two-part, 130-page scientific work, The Evolution of the Long-Necked Giraffe, that looks in great detail at the physiology, behavior, and natural history of giraffes.

When I first read it several years ago, one sentence in this technical treatise especially captured my attention. Lönnig analyzes many Darwinian attempts to explain biological features and behavior of giraffes in terms of the advantages they might convey for survival -- for example, the famous claim that the neck is long because it provides an advantage in reaching the higher leaves of the trees giraffes feed on. He shows that all are false or unsupported by the evidence. Then he concludes, on page 32 of the second part: "If, on the other hand, one views Nature as ingenious artwork that cannot be reduced to the question of utility alone, these problems disappear."

Although he quotes a zoo curator as saying "The day I find a woman with eyes as beautiful, I'll get married," Dr. Lönnig -- a well-known proponent of intelligent design -- did not intend his comparison of the giraffe to ingenious artwork as a poetic or metaphorical statement. He meant it as a serious scientific statement, an explanation for the otherwise inexplicable origin of giraffes.

Giraffes, elephants, zebras, tigers, parrots, bald eagles, whales, and rhinos as artwork, rather than just victors in the eternal struggle for survival? Now there's a revolutionary scientific point of view!

Medicine vs. Darwinism?

Doctors and Evolution

David Klinghoffer May 19, 2015 2:08 PM

In an almost charmingly naïve article, Francie Diep at Pacific Standardwonders, "Why Do Some Doctors Reject Evolution?" Her news peg is Republican presidential hopeful Ben Carson, a neurosurgeon who has expressed reservations about Darwinian accounts of evolution -- though I don't know that anyone has questioned him sharply and in an informed way about his ideas on the subject.

Miss Diep is perplexed: "We assumed such beliefs would be unusual among doctors." Not so, she discovered.

[W]hen Pacific Standard talked to doctors, many didn't find their colleagues' rejection of evolution unusual. "Nope, it's not uncommon at all," says David Gorski, a surgeon and researcher at Wayne State University. Even in the national spotlight, Carsonisn't the only high-profile politician-physician to doubt the well-established biology concept.

All of the physicians Pacific Standard talked with, both on and off the record, had the same answer to "How is it possible?": Although doctors use many insights from biology, many don't actually need to understand or believe in evolution correctly to do their jobs.

"Most physicians are not scientists. This is not a knock, but they're more akin to engineers," Gorski says. "They take science that's already known and they apply it to a problem, the problem being making patients better."

It's not a knock? It sure sounds like one. The countervailing consideration is that physicians and engineers -- and why not throw in computer scientists as well? -- do something on a daily basis that evolutionary biologists never do. The doctor or engineer's responsibility is to maintain, devise, or build complex systems, even from the ground up, systems that must operate continuously without fail. If the system does fail, then the physician, engineer, or computer scientist has flopped in his job. Not uncommonly, the results of such a flop can be fatal -- for the patient on the operating table, for example, or the passenger in the jet airplane.

Luxuriously insulated from reality, biologists theorizing about the history of life, how it arose and developed, face no such pressure to fill in what Ann Gauger calls the "white spaces" in evolutionary thinking. (For more on that, see "The Modesty Chronicles.") Vague stories and magic words typically substitute for detailed explanations of how biological systems could come into being through purposeless, unintelligent processes alone. It often seems that the only serious pressure that Darwinists do face is from us.

Miss Diep rolls out the usual line about how evolution is vital to biology which is vital to medicine, ergo medicine needs evolution or ought to do so. But even some hardline Darwinists admit that the practical benefits of their cherished theory are scarce.

Coincidentally, a correspondent today sends across my desk this from biologist Jerry Coyne, of Why Evolution Is True fame. Writing in Nature("Selling Darwin"), Coyne has conceded:

[T]ruth be told, evolution hasn't yielded many practical or commercial benefits. Yes, bacteria evolve drug resistance, and yes, we must take countermeasures, but beyond that there is not much to say. Evolution cannot help us predict what new vaccines to manufacture because microbes evolve unpredictyuably. But hasn't evolution helped guide animal and plant breeding? Not very much. Most improvement in crop plants and animals occurred long before we knew anything about evolution, and came about by people following the genetic principle of 'like begets like'. Even now, as its practitioners admit, the field of quantitative genetics has been of little value in helping improve varieties. Future advances will almost certainly come from transgenics, which is not based on evolution at all.

He wrote that in 2006 -- maybe he'd be more circumspect now. But I'm not aware that anything has changed in medicine or other fields to shift a reasonable person from such a view.

Coyne, of course, believes that the importance of evolution lies in its power to explain, or explain away, not to heal or otherwise improve the quality of our lives. It's precisely that explanatory power, as we know, that is most urgently in need of critical examination.

And now for our next trick.

Any Sufficiently Vacuous Evolutionary Explanation Is Indistinguishable from Magic

Evolution News & Views May 18, 2015 3:09 AM

Intelligent-design theorists including William Dembski and Stephen Meyer have produced rigorous mathematical, logical, and empirical arguments showing that the mechanism described by the "chance hypothesis" is woefully inadequate to bring about the complex genetic information found in even the simplest life. Yet that has not stopped many a Darwinian from invoking chance as a cause of biological complexity. Information, they believe, "emerges" by accident.

Magic Mutations

One example is this from Yale University likening evolution to a "house of cards." Yes, you read that right. As Bill Hathaway says in the headline, "In evolution, 'house of cards' model wins." How can this be?

Using sophisticated modeling of genomic data from diverse species, Yale researchers have answered a longstanding question about which competing model of evolution works best.

Their research suggests that the "house of cards" model -- which holds that mutations with large effects effectively reshuffle the genomic deck -- explains evolutionary processes better than the theory that species undergo the accumulation of many mutations with small effects. [Emphasis added.]

Their reasoning seems to rely on the assumption that since evolution is an accepted fact, and intelligence is disallowed, it must have happened. But mutations, being random genetic changes, offer nothing better causally than the chance hypothesis.

Darwin, of course, knew nothing about genes [i.e., geneticinformation] when he formulated his theory of how natural selection preserves traits that benefit the survival of organisms.Once the crucial role of genes was discovered, most evolutionary biologists conjectured that random mutations in genes were preserved in populations when they helped an organism survive or reproduce. Since mutations that have large effects are almost always fatal to the organism, one classical model holds that most must have small effects and that many would have toaccumulate in order to create new traits and forms.

Another theory hypothesizes the opposite: that mutations do not cause small changes in fitness, but trigger a cascade of changes -- the evolutionary "house of cards." A third theory is even simpler: that mutations have no effect on fitness whatsoever. Recent discoveries of how small bits of genetic material regulate expression of large networks of genes bolstered interest in the "house of cards" model, but only now has the theory been successfully demonstrated to be applicable to diverse organisms on a genomic scale.

Hathaway claims that the Yale scientists have demonstrated this for yeast, worms, and flies. But can a house of cards in a mutational breeze account for such large amounts of genetic information in organisms that have supposedly been stable for hundreds of millions of years?

Let's recall the high level of information we're talking about. Recently, apaper in Nature reported that "simple" yeast cells possess the most advanced rotary motors known in life:

The eukaryotic V-ATPase is the most complex rotary ATPase: it has three peripheral stalks, a hetero-oligomeric proton-conducting proteolipid ring, several subunits not found in other rotary ATPases, and is regulated by reversible dissociation of its catalytic and proton-conducting regions.

As for worms, our new video "How to Build a Worm" illustrates the high degree of functional specification in that humble organismAnd flies -- well, they fly! Powered flight demands numerous interdependent specifications requiring high levels of genetic information. Claiming that chance mutations in a genetic "house of cards" explains these complex creatures is magic talk.

Magic DNA

News from NASA via Astrobiology Magazine speaks of the "Spontaneous Appearance of Primordial DNA." Any evidence for that miracle?

The self-organization properties of DNA-like molecular fragments four billion years ago may have guided their own growth into repeating chemical chains long enough to act as a basis for primitive life, says a new study by the University of Colorado Boulder and the University of Milan.

While studies of ancient mineral formations contain evidence for the evolution of bacteria from 3.5 to 3.8 billion years ago -- just half a billion years after the stabilization of Earth's crust -- what might have preceded the formation of such unicellular organisms is still a mystery. The new findings suggest a novel scenario for the non-biological origins of nucleic acids, which are the building blocks of living organisms, said CU-Boulder physics Professor Noel Clark, a study co-author....

While there now is consensus among origin-of-life researchers that RNA chains are too specialized to have been created as a product of random chemical reactions, the new findings suggest a viable alternative, said Clark.

Yet the "viable alternative" is just as random: liquid crystals with "the ability to drive the formation of chemical bonds that connect short DNA chains to form long ones, without the aid of biological mechanisms" contain no genetic information. They are silent on the origin of the functional, specific information that can turn crystals into functional machines:

For several years the research group has been exploring the hypothesis that the way in which DNA emerged in the early Earthlies in its structural properties and its ability to self-organize. In the pre-RNA world, the spontaneous self-assembly of fragmentsof nucleic acids (DNA and RNA) may have acted as a template for their chemical joining into polymers, which are substances composed of a large number of repeating units.

"The new findings show that in the presence of appropriate chemical conditions, the spontaneous self assembly of small DNA fragments into stacks of short duplexes greatly favors theirbinding into longer polymers, thereby providing a pre-RNA route to the RNA world," said Clark.

This explanation completely misses the point. There are other molecules that can spontaneously grow into longer chains, or into intricate structures like snowflakes. What sets DNA apart is its capacity to store coded information. The article glosses over that vital trait as if waving a magic wand of "emergence" will provide the information, once the molecular substrate is present.

Given that science's job is to explain the mysterious in terms of scientific laws and evidence, it's astonishing how governments will throw money at magical explanations. Intelligent design advocates, by contrast, have to work independently or raise private donations. This study "was funded by the Grant PRIN Program of the Italian Ministries of Education, Universities and Research and by the U.S. National Science Foundation."

Magic Motion

Meanwhile a press release from the Institute for Basic Science, entitled "The Stupidly Effective Genius of Nature," describes how many organisms employ randomness on purpose when foraging for food.

A Lévy walk or flight, named after a French mathematician Paul Lévy, is a mix of long trajectories and short random movements. Numerous short movements are made within a small area, and occasionally a long stride to a distant area, where the action is repeated. This particular motion pattern is observed in humans and animals.

While scientists had previously studied the pattern in humans and animals of inherent intelligence, this research is the first to identify this pattern of movement in molecular motors.

The Lévy walk strategy is employed by jellyfish, birds, sharks, and people. Since there is a purposeful function for the movements, they are not truly random. Finding this motile strategy in cell motors like kinesins, which move on microtubules, it seems the logical deduction should be that they were purposefully designed for it.

Refreshingly, this press release does not attribute the strategy to blind evolution or the magic of emergence! Here's how they express the proper (non-magical) inference:

The rule they discovered is this. When molecular motors carry cargo, their purpose is to find a destination. They thoroughly explore their immediate environment. If a destination is not found, they travel further, repeating the action until a destination is found. "Nature is more clever than we are. It finds this efficient way to engineer this marvelous result without being smart, without (using any pre-existing) memory, and it saves them energy" added Director Granick.

"The findings of our study may help us to better understand our cells and how our body is engineered" he went on. "At the IBS Center for Soft and Living Matter in Korea, the rule we discoveredholds promise to engineer new kinds of artificial active materials."

This research was funded by South Korea and the U.S. Department of Energy, which allows us to end on a happy note. Engineering, after all, relies not on magic but on intelligent design..

Exodus8-14 NWT 2013 Edition

8 Then Jehovah said to Moses: “Go in to Pharʹaoh and say to him, ‘This is what Jehovah says: “Send my people away so that they may serve me.+ 2 If you keep refusing to send them away, I will plague all your territory with frogs.+ 3 And the Nile River will swarm with frogs, and they will come up and enter into your house, into your bedroom, on your bed, into the houses of your servants and on your people, into your ovens, and into your kneading troughs.*+ 4 On you, on your people, and on all your servants, the frogs will come up.”’”

5 Jehovah later said to Moses: “Say to Aaron, ‘Stretch out your hand with your rod over the rivers, the Nile canals, and the marshes, and make the frogs come up over the land of Egypt.’” 6 So Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt, and the frogs began to come up and to cover the land of Egypt.7 However, the magic-practicing priests did the same thing by their secret arts, and they too made the frogs come up over the land of Egypt.+ 8 Pharʹaoh then called Moses and Aaron and said: “Plead with Jehovah to remove the frogs from me and my people,+ as I want to send the people away so that they may sacrifice to Jehovah.” 9 Then Moses said to Pharʹaoh: “I leave to you the honor of telling me when I should plead to have the frogs removed from you, your servants, your people, and your houses. Only in the Nile River will they be left.” 10 To this he said: “Tomorrow.” So he said: “It will be according to your word so that you may know that there is no one else like Jehovah our God.+ 11 The frogs will depart from you, your houses, your servants, and your people. They will be left only in the Nile.”+

12 So Moses and Aaron went out from Pharʹaoh, and Moses pleaded with Jehovah about the frogs that He had brought upon Pharʹaoh.+ 13 Then Jehovah did as Moses asked, and the frogs began to die in the houses, the courtyards, and the fields. 14 They were piling them up in countless heaps, and the land began to stink. 15 When Pharʹaoh saw that there was relief, he hardened his heart+and he refused to listen to them, just as Jehovah had said.

16 Jehovah now said to Moses: “Say to Aaron, ‘Stretch out your rod and strike the dust of the earth, and it must become gnats in all the land of Egypt.’”17 And they did this. Aaron stretched out his hand with his rod and struck the dust of the earth, and the gnats came on man and beast. All the dust of the earth became gnats in all the land of Egypt.+ 18 The magic-practicing priests tried to do the same and produce gnats by their secret arts,+ but they could not. And the gnats came on man and beast. 19 So the magic-practicing priests said to Pharʹaoh: “It is the finger of God!”+ But Pharʹaoh’s heart continued to be obstinate, and he did not listen to them, just as Jehovah had said.

20 Then Jehovah said to Moses: “Get up early in the morning and station yourself in front of Pharʹaoh. Look! He is coming out to the water! And you must say to him, ‘This is what Jehovah has said: “Send my people away so that they may serve me. 21 But if you do not send my people away, I will send on you, your servants, and your people and into your houses the gadfly;* and the houses of Egypt will be full of gadflies, and they will even cover the ground they* stand on.22 On that day I will certainly set apart the land of Goʹshen, where my people are dwelling. No gadflies will exist there,+ and by this you will know that I, Jehovah, am here in the land.+ 23 And I will make a distinction between my people and your people. Tomorrow this sign will take place.”’”

24 And Jehovah did so, and heavy swarms of gadflies began to invade the house of Pharʹaoh and the houses of his servants and all the land of Egypt.+ The land was ruined by the gadflies.+ 25 Finally, Pharʹaoh called Moses and Aaron and said: “Go, sacrifice to your God in the land.” 26 But Moses said: “It is not proper to do so, because what we would sacrifice to Jehovah our God would be detestable to the Egyptians.+ If we would make a sacrifice that was detestable to the Egyptians right before their eyes, would they not stone us? 27 We will make a three-day journey into the wilderness, and there we will sacrifice to Jehovah our God, just as he has said to us.”+

28 Pharʹaoh now said: “I will send you away to sacrifice to Jehovah your God in the wilderness. Only, you must not go so far away. Plead in my behalf.”+29 Then Moses said: “Now I am going away from you, and I will plead with Jehovah, and the gadflies will depart from Pharʹaoh, his servants, and his people tomorrow. But Pharʹaoh must stop trifling* with us by refusing to send the people away to sacrifice to Jehovah.”+ 30 Moses then went out from Pharʹaoh and pleaded with Jehovah.+ 31 So Jehovah did according to Moses’ word, and the gadflies departed from Pharʹaoh, his servants, and his people. Not one was left.32 However, Pharʹaoh again hardened his heart and did not send the people away.

9 So Jehovah said to Moses: “Go in to Pharʹaoh and say to him, ‘This is what Jehovah the God of the Hebrews has said: “Send my people away so that they may serve me.+ 2 But if you refuse to send them away and you keep holding them, 3 look! Jehovah’s hand+ will come against your livestock in the field. On the horses, the donkeys, the camels, the herd, and the flock, there will be a devastating plague.+ 4 And Jehovah will certainly make a distinction between the livestock of Israel and the livestock of Egypt, and nothing that belongs to the Israelites will die.”’”+ 5 Moreover, Jehovah set an appointed time, saying: “Tomorrow Jehovah will do this in the land.”

6 And Jehovah did this on the very next day, and all sorts of livestock of Egypt began to die,+ but not one of Israel’s livestock died. 7 When Pharʹaoh inquired, look! not so much as one of Israel’s livestock had died. Nevertheless, Pharʹaoh’s heart continued to be unresponsive, and he did not send the people away.+

8 Jehovah then said to Moses and Aaron: “Fill both of your hands with soot from a kiln, and Moses must throw it into the air in front of Pharʹaoh. 9 And it will become a fine dust on all the land of Egypt, and it will become festering boils on man and beast in all the land of Egypt.”

10 So they took soot from a kiln and stood before Pharʹaoh, and Moses tossed it into the air, and it became festering boils breaking out on man and beast.11 The magic-practicing priests were unable to stand before Moses because of the boils, for they had developed on the magic-practicing priests and on all the Egyptians.+ 12 But Jehovah allowed Pharʹaoh’s heart to become obstinate, and he did not listen to them, just as Jehovah had told Moses.+

13 Then Jehovah said to Moses: “Get up early in the morning and station yourself in front of Pharʹaoh, and say to him, ‘This is what Jehovah the God of the Hebrews has said: “Send my people away so that they may serve me. 14 For now I am directing all my blows to strike your heart, your servants, and your people, so that you may know that there is no one like me in all the earth.+15 For by now I could have thrust my hand out to strike you and your people with a devastating plague, and you would have been wiped out* from the earth.16 But for this very reason I have kept you in existence: to show you my power and to have my name declared in all the earth.+ 17 Are you still behaving arrogantly against my people by not sending them away? 18 Here I will cause a very great hail to rain down tomorrow about this time, such as has never occurred in Egypt from the day it was founded until now. 19 Therefore, send word to bring all your livestock and all that is yours in the field under shelter. Every man and beast caught in the field and not brought into the house will die when the hail comes down on them.”’”

20 Anyone among Pharʹaoh’s servants who feared Jehovah’s word quickly brought his own servants and his livestock into the houses, 21 but whoever did not take Jehovah’s word to heart left his servants and his livestock in the field.

22 Jehovah now said to Moses: “Stretch out your hand toward the heavens, so that hail may come down on all the land of Egypt,+ on man and beast and all the vegetation of the field in the land of Egypt.”+ 23 So Moses stretched out his rod toward the heavens, and Jehovah sent thunder and hail, and fire* fell down to the earth, and Jehovah kept making it rain down hail on the land of Egypt.24 There was hail, and there was fire flashing in the midst of the hail. It was very heavy; there had never been any like it in the land since Egypt had become a nation.+ 25 The hail struck everything in the field throughout the land of Egypt, from man to beast, and it struck down all the vegetation and shattered all the trees of the field.+ 26 Only in the land of Goʹshen, where the Israelites were, there was no hail.+

27 So Pharʹaoh sent for Moses and Aaron and said to them: “I have sinned this time. Jehovah is righteous, and I and my people are in the wrong. 28 Plead with Jehovah that there may be an end to God’s thunder and hail. Then I will be willing to send you away, and you will not stay any longer.” 29 So Moses said to him: “As soon as I go out of the city, I will spread out my hands before Jehovah. The thunder will stop and the hail will not continue any longer, so that you may know that the earth belongs to Jehovah.+ 30 But as for you and your servants, I know already that even then, you will not fear Jehovah God.”

31 Now the flax and the barley had been struck down, because the barley was in the ear and the flax had flower buds. 32 But the wheat and the spelt had not been struck down, because they were later crops.* 33 Moses now went out of the city from Pharʹaoh and spread out his hands before Jehovah, and the thunder and the hail stopped and the rain quit pouring down on the earth.+ 34 When Pharʹaoh saw that the rain, the hail, and the thunder had stopped, he sinned again and hardened his heart,+ he as well as his servants. 35 And Pharʹaoh’s heart continued obstinate, and he did not send the Israelites away, just as Jehovah had stated through Moses.+

10 Then Jehovah said to Moses: “Go in to Pharʹaoh, for I have allowed his heart and the hearts of his servants to become unresponsive,+ so that I may display these signs of mine right before him,+ 2 and in order that you may declare to your sons and your grandsons how severely I have dealt with Egypt and what signs I have performed among them;+ and you will certainly know that I am Jehovah.”

3 So Moses and Aaron went in to Pharʹaoh and said to him: “This is what Jehovah the God of the Hebrews has said, ‘How long will you refuse to submit to me?+ Send my people away so that they may serve me. 4 For if you keep refusing to send my people away, here I am bringing locusts within your boundaries tomorrow. 5 And they will cover the surface of the earth, and it will not be possible to see the ground. They will eat up what escaped the hail and was left for you, and they will eat all your trees that are growing in the field.+ 6 They will fill your houses, the houses of all your servants, and the houses of all Egypt to an extent that your fathers and your grandfathers never saw from the time they have been in this land until today.’”+ With that he turned and went out from Pharʹaoh.

7 Then Pharʹaoh’s servants said to him: “How long will this man continue to menace* us? Send the men away so that they may serve Jehovah their God. Do you not yet realize that Egypt has been ruined?” 8 So Moses and Aaron were brought back to Pharʹaoh, and he said to them: “Go, serve Jehovah your God. But just who will be going?” 9 Then Moses said: “We will go with our young people, our old people, our sons, our daughters, our sheep, and our cattle,+ because we will hold a festival to Jehovah.”+ 10 He said to them: “If I ever send you and your children away, then Jehovah is indeed with you!+ It is clear that you intend to do something evil. 11 No! Only your men may go and serve Jehovah, for that is what you requested.” With that they were driven out from before Pharʹaoh.

12 Jehovah now said to Moses: “Stretch out your hand over the land of Egypt for the locusts, so that they may come up over the land of Egypt and eat up all the vegetation of the land, everything that the hail has let remain.” 13 At once Moses stretched out his rod over the land of Egypt, and Jehovah caused an east wind to blow on the land all that day and all night. The morning came, and the east wind brought the locusts. 14 And the locusts came up over all the land of Egypt and settled down on the whole territory of Egypt.+ It was extremely severe;+ never before had there been so many locusts, nor would there ever be so many again. 15 They covered the surface of the entire land, and the land grew dark with them; they devoured all the vegetation of the land and all the fruit of the trees that the hail had left; nothing green was left on the trees or on the vegetation of the field in all the land of Egypt.

16 So Pharʹaoh quickly called Moses and Aaron and said: “I have sinned against Jehovah your God and against you. 17 Now, please, pardon my sin just this once, and plead with Jehovah your God that he just remove this deadly plague from upon me.” 18 So he* went out from Pharʹaoh and pleaded with Jehovah.+ 19 Then Jehovah caused the wind to shift, and it became a very stiff west wind, and it carried the locusts away and drove them into the Red Sea. Not a single locust remained in all the territory of Egypt. 20 However, Jehovah allowed Pharʹaoh’s heart to become obstinate,+ and he did not send the Israelites away.

21 Jehovah then said to Moses: “Stretch out your hand toward the heavens so that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, a darkness so thick that it can be felt.” 22 Moses immediately stretched out his hand toward the heavens, and there was a dense darkness in all the land of Egypt for three days.+ 23 They did not see one another, and none of them got up from where they were for three days; but all the Israelites had light in their dwellings.+ 24 Pharʹaoh then called Moses and said: “Go, serve Jehovah.+ Only your sheep and your cattle will remain behind. Even your children may go with you.” 25 But Moses said: “You yourself will also provide us with* sacrifices and burnt offerings, and we will offer them to Jehovah our God.+ 26 Our livestock will also go with us. Not an animal* will be allowed to remain, because we will be using some of them to worship Jehovah our God, and we do not know what we will offer in worship to Jehovah until we arrive there.” 27 So Jehovah allowed Pharʹaoh’s heart to become obstinate, and he did not consent to send them away.+ 28 Pharʹaoh said to him: “Get out of my sight! Make sure that you do not try to see my face again, for on the day you see my face, you will die.” 29 To this Moses said: “Just as you have spoken, I will not try to see your face again.”

11 Then Jehovah said to Moses: “One more plague I am going to bring upon Pharʹaoh and Egypt. After that he will send you away from here.+ When he does send you away, he will literally drive you out of here.+ 2 Now tell the people that all the men and women should ask their neighbor for articles of silver and of gold.”+ 3 And Jehovah gave the people favor in the eyes of the Egyptians. Moreover, Moses himself had become highly esteemed in the land of Egypt among Pharʹaoh’s servants and among the people.

4 Moses then said: “This is what Jehovah has said, ‘About midnight I am going out into the midst of Egypt,+ 5 and every firstborn in the land of Egypt will die,+ from the firstborn of Pharʹaoh who is sitting on his throne to the firstborn of the slave girl who is working at the hand mill, and every firstborn of the livestock.+ 6 Throughout all the land of Egypt, there will be a great outcry such as has never occurred nor will ever occur again.+ 7 But not even a dog will bark*at the Israelites, at the men or their livestock, so that you may know that Jehovah can make a distinction between the Egyptians and the Israelites.’+8 And all your servants will certainly come down to me and prostrate themselves to me, saying, ‘Go, you and all the people who follow you.’+ And after that I will go out.” With that he went out from Pharʹaoh in the heat of anger.

9 Jehovah then said to Moses: “Pharʹaoh will not listen to you,+ in order for my miracles to be multiplied in the land of Egypt.”+ 10 Moses and Aaron performed all these miracles before Pharʹaoh,+ but Jehovah allowed Pharʹaoh’s heart to become obstinate, so that he did not send the Israelites away from his land.+

12 Jehovah now said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt: 2 “This month will be the beginning of the months for you. It will be the first of the months of the year for you.+ 3 Speak to the entire assembly of Israel, saying, ‘On the tenth day of this month, they should each take for themselves a sheep+ for their father’s house, a sheep to a house. 4 But if the household is too small for the sheep, they* and their nearest neighbor should share it between themselves in their house according to the number of people.* When making the calculation, determine how much of the sheep each one will eat. 5 Your sheep should be a sound,+ one-year-old male. You may choose from the young rams or from the goats. 6 You must care for it until the 14th day of this month,+ and the whole congregation of the assembly of Israel must slaughter it at twilight.*+ 7 They must take some of the blood and splash it on the two doorposts and the upper part of the doorway of the houses in which they eat it.+

8 “‘They must eat the meat on this night.+ They should roast it over the fire and eat it along with unleavened bread+ and bitter greens.+ 9 Do not eat any of it raw or boiled, cooked in water, but roast it over the fire, its head together with its shanks and its inner parts. 10 You must not save any of it until morning, but any of it left over until morning you should burn with fire.+ 11 And this is how you should eat it, with your belt fastened,* sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you should eat it in a hurry. It is Jehovah’s Passover. 12 For Iwill pass through the land of Egypt on this night and strike every firstborn in the land of Egypt, from man to beast;+ and I will execute judgment on all the gods of Egypt.+ I am Jehovah. 13 The blood will serve as your sign on the houses where you are; and I will see the blood and pass over you, and the plague will not come on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.+

14 “‘This day will serve as a memorial for you, and you must celebrate it as a festival to Jehovah throughout your generations. As a lasting statute, you should celebrate it. 15 Seven days you are to eat unleavened bread.+ Yes, on the first day you are to remove the sourdough from your houses, because anyone eating what is leavened from the first day down to the seventh, that person* must be cut off* from Israel. 16 On the first day you will hold a holy convention, and on the seventh day, another holy convention. No work is to be done on these days.+Only what every person* needs to eat, that alone may be prepared for you.

17 “‘You must keep the Festival of Unleavened Bread,+ for on this very day, I will bring your multitudes* out of the land of Egypt. And you must keep this day throughout your generations as a lasting statute. 18 In the first month, on the 14th day of the month, in the evening, you are to eat unleavened bread until the 21st day of the month, in the evening.+ 19 No sourdough is to be found in your houses for seven days, because if anyone eats what is leavened, whether he is a foreigner or a native of the land,+ that person* must be cut off* from the assembly of Israel.+ 20 You should not eat anything leavened. In all your homes, you are to eat unleavened bread.’”

21 Moses promptly called all the elders of Israel+ and said to them: “Go and select young animals* for each of your families, and slaughter the Passover sacrifice. 22 Then you must dip a bunch of hyssop into the blood that is in a basin and strike the upper part of the doorway and the two doorposts with the blood; and none of you should go out of the entrance of his house until morning.23 Then when Jehovah passes through to plague the Egyptians and sees the blood on the upper part of the doorway and on the two doorposts, Jehovah will certainly pass over the entrance, and he will not allow the plague of death* to enter into your houses.+

24 “You must observe this event as a lasting regulation for you and your sons.+ 25 And when you come into the land that Jehovah will give you just as he has stated, you must keep this observance.+ 26 And when your sons ask you, ‘What does this observance mean to you?’+ 27 you must say, ‘It is the sacrifice of the Passover to Jehovah, who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt when he plagued the Egyptians, but he spared our houses.’”

Then the people bowed low and prostrated themselves. 28 So the Israelites went and did just as Jehovah had commanded Moses and Aaron.+ They did just so.

29 Then at midnight, Jehovah struck down every firstborn in the land of Egypt,+ from the firstborn of Pharʹaoh who was sitting on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the prison,* and every firstborn of the animals.+ 30 Pharʹaoh got up that night along with all his servants and all the other Egyptians, and there was a great outcry among the Egyptians, because there was not a house where someone was not dead.+ 31 At once he called Moses and Aaron+ by night and said: “Get up, get out from among my people, both you and the other Israelites. Go and serve Jehovah, just as you have said.+32 Take also your flocks and your herds and go, just as you have said.+ But you must also bless me.”

33 And the Egyptians began to urge the people to depart quickly+ out of the land “because,” as they said, “we are all as good as dead!”+ 34 So the people carried their flour dough before it was leavened, with their kneading troughs*wrapped up in their clothing on their shoulder. 35 The Israelites did what Moses had told them and asked the Egyptians for articles of silver and of gold as well as clothing.+ 36 Jehovah gave the people favor in the eyes of the Egyptians, so that they gave them what they asked for, and they plundered the Egyptians.+

37 Then the Israelites departed from Ramʹe·ses+ for Sucʹcoth,+ about 600,000 men on foot, besides children.+ 38 And a vast mixed company*+ also went with them, as well as flocks and herds, a great number of livestock. 39 They began to bake the dough that they brought from Egypt into round loaves of unleavened bread. It was not leavened, because they had been driven out of Egypt so suddenly that they had not prepared any provisions for themselves.+

40 The dwelling of the Israelites, who had dwelled in Egypt,+ was 430 years.+41 At the end of the 430 years, on this very day, all the multitudes* of Jehovah went out of the land of Egypt. 42 It is a night on which they will celebrate Jehovah’s bringing them out of the land of Egypt. This night is to be observed to Jehovah by all the people of Israel throughout their generations.+

43 Then Jehovah said to Moses and Aaron, “This is the statute of the Passover: No foreigner may eat of it.+ 44 But if someone has a slave man who was purchased with money, you should circumcise him.+ Only then may he share in eating it. 45 A settler and a hired worker may not eat of it. 46 In one house it is to be eaten. You must not take any of the meat outside of the house, and you must not break any of its bones.+ 47 All the assembly of Israel are to celebrate it. 48 If a foreigner resides with you and he wants to celebrate the Passover to Jehovah, every male of his must be circumcised. Then he may come near to celebrate it, and he will become like a native of the land. But no uncircumcised man may eat of it.+ 49 One law will apply for the native and for the foreigner who is residing among you.”+

50 So all the Israelites did just as Jehovah had commanded Moses and Aaron. They did just so. 51 On this very day, Jehovah brought the Israelites along with their multitudes* out of the land of Egypt.

13 Jehovah spoke further to Moses, saying: 2 “Sanctify* to me every firstborn male* among the Israelites. The first male to be born, of both human and animal, belongs to me.”+

3 Then Moses said to the people: “Remember this day on which you went out of Egypt,+ from the house of slavery, because with a mighty hand Jehovah brought you out of here.+ So nothing leavened may be eaten. 4 You are going out on this day, in the month of Aʹbib.*+ 5 When Jehovah has brought you into the land of the Caʹnaan·ites, the Hitʹtites, the Amʹor·ites, the Hiʹvites, and the Jebʹu·sites,+ which he swore to your forefathers to give you,+ a land flowing with milk and honey,+ then you must keep this observance in this month. 6 Seven days you are to eat unleavened bread,+ and on the seventh day, there will be a festival to Jehovah. 7 Unleavened bread is to be eaten for the seven days;+ and nothing leavened is to be found with you,+ and no sourdough is to be found with you within all your territory.* 8 And you must tell your son on that day, ‘It is because of what Jehovah did for me when I came out of Egypt.’+ 9 And this will serve for you as a sign on your hand and as a memorial* on your forehead,*+ so that Jehovah’s law may be in your mouth, for with a mighty hand Jehovah brought you out of Egypt. 10 You must keep this statute at its appointed time from year to year.+

11 “When Jehovah brings you into the land of the Caʹnaan·ites, which he has sworn to give to you and to your forefathers,+ 12 you must devote to Jehovah every firstborn male,* as well as every male firstling of the livestock that you acquire. The males belong to Jehovah.+ 13 Every firstling donkey you are to redeem with a sheep, and if you do not redeem it, then you must break its neck. And every firstborn male of your sons you are to redeem.+

14 “In case your son should ask you later on, ‘What does this mean?’ then you should say to him, ‘With a mighty hand Jehovah brought us out of Egypt, from the house of slavery.+ 15 When Pharʹaoh stubbornly refused to send us away,+ Jehovah killed every firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of man to the firstborn of beast.+ That is why I am sacrificing to Jehovah all the firstborn males,* and I redeem every firstborn of my sons.’ 16 This must serve as a sign on your hand and as a headband on your forehead,*+ for with a mighty hand Jehovah brought us out of Egypt.”

17 Now when Pharʹaoh sent the people away, God did not lead them by the way of the land of the Phi·lisʹtines, although it was near. For God said: “The people may change their minds when they are confronted by war and will return to Egypt.” 18 So God made the people go around by the way of the wilderness of the Red Sea.+ But it was in battle formation that the Israelites went up out of the land of Egypt. 19 Moses also took Joseph’s bones with him, because Joseph had made the sons of Israel solemnly swear: “God will not fail to turn his attention to you, and you must take my bones up out of here with you.”+ 20 They departed from Sucʹcoth and encamped at Eʹtham, at the edge of the wilderness.

21 Now Jehovah was going ahead of them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way,+ and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could travel by day and by night.+ 22 The pillar of cloud would not move away from before the people during the day, nor the pillar of fire at night.+

13 Jehovah spoke further to Moses, saying: 2 “Sanctify* to me every firstborn male* among the Israelites. The first male to be born, of both human and animal, belongs to me.”+

3 Then Moses said to the people: “Remember this day on which you went out of Egypt,+ from the house of slavery, because with a mighty hand Jehovah brought you out of here.+ So nothing leavened may be eaten. 4 You are going out on this day, in the month of Aʹbib.*+ 5 When Jehovah has brought you into the land of the Caʹnaan·ites, the Hitʹtites, the Amʹor·ites, the Hiʹvites, and the Jebʹu·sites,+ which he swore to your forefathers to give you,+ a land flowing with milk and honey,+ then you must keep this observance in this month. 6 Seven days you are to eat unleavened bread,+ and on the seventh day, there will be a festival to Jehovah. 7 Unleavened bread is to be eaten for the seven days;+ and nothing leavened is to be found with you,+ and no sourdough is to be found with you within all your territory.* 8 And you must tell your son on that day, ‘It is because of what Jehovah did for me when I came out of Egypt.’+ 9 And this will serve for you as a sign on your hand and as a memorial* on your forehead,*+ so that Jehovah’s law may be in your mouth, for with a mighty hand Jehovah brought you out of Egypt. 10 You must keep this statute at its appointed time from year to year.+

11 “When Jehovah brings you into the land of the Caʹnaan·ites, which he has sworn to give to you and to your forefathers,+ 12 you must devote to Jehovah every firstborn male,* as well as every male firstling of the livestock that you acquire. The males belong to Jehovah.+ 13 Every firstling donkey you are to redeem with a sheep, and if you do not redeem it, then you must break its neck. And every firstborn male of your sons you are to redeem.+

14 “In case your son should ask you later on, ‘What does this mean?’ then you should say to him, ‘With a mighty hand Jehovah brought us out of Egypt, from the house of slavery.+ 15 When Pharʹaoh stubbornly refused to send us away,+Jehovah killed every firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of man to the firstborn of beast.+ That is why I am sacrificing to Jehovah all the firstborn males,* and I redeem every firstborn of my sons.’ 16 This must serve as a sign on your hand and as a headband on your forehead,*+ for with a mighty hand Jehovah brought us out of Egypt.”

17 Now when Pharʹaoh sent the people away, God did not lead them by the way of the land of the Phi·lisʹtines, although it was near. For God said: “The people may change their minds when they are confronted by war and will return to Egypt.” 18 So God made the people go around by the way of the wilderness of the Red Sea.+ But it was in battle formation that the Israelites went up out of the land of Egypt. 19 Moses also took Joseph’s bones with him, because Joseph had made the sons of Israel solemnly swear: “God will not fail to turn his attention to you, and you must take my bones up out of here with you.”+ 20 They departed from Sucʹcoth and encamped at Eʹtham, at the edge of the wilderness.

21 Now Jehovah was going ahead of them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way,+ and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could travel by day and by night.+ 22 The pillar of cloud would not move away from before the people during the day, nor the pillar of fire at night.+

14 Jehovah now said to Moses: 2 “Tell the Israelites that they should turn back and encamp before Pi·ha·hiʹroth, between Migʹdol and the sea, within view of Baʹal-zeʹphon.+ You are to encamp facing it by the sea. 3 Then Pharʹaoh will say about the Israelites, ‘They are wandering in confusion in the land. The wilderness has closed in on them.’ 4 I will allow Pharʹaoh’s heart to become obstinate,+ and he will chase after them, and I will glorify myself by means of Pharʹaoh and all his army;+ and the Egyptians will certainly know that I am Jehovah.”+ So that is what they did.

5 Later it was reported to the king of Egypt that the people had run away. Immediately, Pharʹaoh and his servants had a change of heart regarding the people,+ and they said: “Why did we do this and release Israel from serving as slaves for us?” 6 So he made his war chariots ready, and he took his people with him.+ 7 He took 600 chosen chariots and all the other chariots of Egypt, with warriors on every one of them. 8 Thus Jehovah allowed the heart of Pharʹaoh king of Egypt to become obstinate, and he chased after the Israelites, while the Israelites were going out with confidence.*+ 9 The Egyptians chased after them,+ and all the chariot horses of Pharʹaoh and his cavalrymen and his army were catching up with them while they were camping by the sea, by Pi·ha·hiʹroth, facing Baʹal-zeʹphon.

10 When Pharʹaoh got closer, the Israelites raised their eyes and saw the Egyptians pursuing them. The Israelites became terrified and began to cry out to Jehovah.+ 11 They said to Moses: “Is it because there are no burial places in Egypt that you have brought us here to die in the wilderness?+ What have you done to us by leading us out of Egypt? 12 Is this not the very thing we told you in Egypt when we said, ‘Let us alone, so that we may serve the Egyptians’? For it is better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.”+ 13 Then Moses said to the people: “Do not be afraid.+ Stand firm and see the salvation of Jehovah that he will perform for you today.+ For the Egyptians whom you see today, you will never ever see again.+ 14 Jehovah himself will fight for you,+and you will keep silent.”

15 Jehovah now said to Moses: “Why do you keep crying out to me? Tell the Israelites that they should break camp. 16 As for you, lift up your rod and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it, so that the Israelites may go through the midst of the sea on dry ground. 17 As for me, I am allowing the hearts of the Egyptians to become obstinate, so that they will go in after them; thus I will glorify myself by means of Pharʹaoh and all his army, his war chariots, and his cavalrymen.+ 18 And the Egyptians will certainly know that I am Jehovah when I glorify myself by means of Pharʹaoh, his war chariots, and his cavalrymen.”+

19 Then the angel of the true God+ who was going ahead of the camp of Israel departed and went to their rear, and the pillar of cloud that was in front of them moved to the rear and stood behind them.+ 20 So it came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel.+ On the one side, it was a dark cloud. On the other side, it was lighting up the night.+ So the one camp did not come near the other camp all night long.

21 Moses now stretched out his hand over the sea;+ and Jehovah drove the sea back with a strong east wind all night long, turning the sea basin into dry ground,+ and the waters divided.+ 22 So the Israelites went through the midst of the sea on dry ground,+ while the waters formed a wall on their right hand and on their left.+ 23 The Egyptians pursued them, and all Pharʹaoh’s horses, his war chariots, and his cavalrymen began going after them into the midst of the sea.+ 24 During the morning watch,* Jehovah looked at the camp of the Egyptians from within the pillar of fire and cloud,+ and he threw the camp of the Egyptians into confusion. 25 He kept taking wheels off their chariots so that they were driving them with difficulty, and the Egyptians were saying: “Let us flee from any contact with Israel, because Jehovah is fighting for them against the Egyptians.”+

26 Then Jehovah said to Moses: “Stretch out your hand over the sea so that the waters may come back over the Egyptians, their war chariots, and their cavalrymen.” 27 Moses at once stretched out his hand over the sea, and as morning approached, the sea returned to its normal condition. As the Egyptians fled from it, Jehovah shook the Egyptians off into the midst of the sea.+ 28 The returning waters covered the war chariots and the cavalrymen and all of Pharʹaoh’s army who had gone into the sea after them.+ Not so much as one among them was allowed to survive.+

29 But the Israelites walked on dry ground in the midst of the seabed,+ and the waters formed a wall on their right hand and on their left.+ 30 Thus Jehovah saved Israel on that day from the hand of the Egyptians,+ and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore. 31 Israel also saw the great power* that Jehovah wielded against the Egyptians, and the people began to fear Jehovah and to put faith in Jehovah and in his servant Moses.+