20 Moses and Aaron obeyed the Lord. Aaron held out his stick, then struck the Nile, as the king and his officials watched. The river turned into blood,
21 the fish died, and the water smelt so bad that none of the Egyptians could drink it. Blood was everywhere in Egypt.
22 But the Egyptian magicians used their secret powers to do the same thing. The king did just as the Lord had said—he stubbornly refused to listen.
23 Then he went back to his palace and never gave it a second thought.
24 The Egyptians had to dig holes along the banks of the Nile for drinking water, because water from the river was unfit to drink.
25 Seven days after the Lord had struck the Nile,