their skin, eyelashes, and eyebrows. It clung to their skin as though they had smallpox, and deprived them of sleep and rest. So they cried out and shouted to Moses, “We repent; so call upon your Lord to remove this affliction from us.” Moses, peace be upon him, then supplicated Allah, and Allah lifted the lice from them after they had remained upon them for seven days, from one Saturday to the next. Yet they broke their pledge and returned to their most wicked deeds. They said, “Never have we been more certain than we are today that he is a sorcerer: he turns sand into living creatures.”

After they had remained in well-being for a month, Moses supplicated, and Allah sent frogs against them. Their houses, courtyards, food, and vessels were filled with them. No one uncovered a vessel or food without finding frogs in it. A man would sit among the frogs up to his chin; whenever he intended to speak, a frog would leap into his mouth. They would leap into their cooking pots, spoiling their food and extinguishing their fires. When one of them lay down, the frogs would climb upon him and pile up over him until he could not turn onto his other side. When he opened his mouth for a morsel, the frog would reach his mouth before the morsel did. Whenever they kneaded dough, frogs would be crushed in it, and whenever they uncovered a cooking pot, it would be filled with frogs. Thus, they suffered grievous harm from them.

‘Ikrimah narrated from Ibn ‘Abbas: The frogs were land-dwelling creatures. When Allah sent them against Pharaoh’s people, they heard and obeyed; they began throwing themselves into boiling pots and blazing ovens. Allah rewarded them for their excellent obedience with the coolness of water. When the people saw this, they wept and complained of it (1) to Moses, saying, “This time we shall repent and shall not return to it.” So he took their solemn pledges and covenants. Then he supplicated his Lord, and He removed the frogs from them after they had remained for seven days, from one Saturday to the next. They then remained in well-being for a month, but afterward broke the covenant and returned to their disbelief. Moses then supplicated against them, and Allah sent blood upon them. The Nile flowed with blood for them, and their waters became blood; whenever they drew water from wells or rivers, they found it to be fresh red blood. They complained to Pharaoh, saying, “We have nothing to drink.” He said, “He has bewitched you.” They replied, “How could he have bewitched us when we find nothing in our vessels of water but fresh blood?”

Pharaoh would place an Egyptian and an Israelite together over a single vessel: what was before the Israelite would be water, while what was before the Egyptian would be blood. [The two would go to a water jar containing water, and it would come out as water for the Israelite and blood for the Egyptian.] (2) Such was the severity of their thirst that a woman from Pharaoh’s people would come to a woman of the Children of Israel and say, “Give me some of your water to drink.” She would pour some for her from her waterskin, but it would turn into blood in the vessel. Eventually, she would say, “Put it in your mouth, then spit it into mine.” So the Israelite woman would take water into her mouth, and when she spat it ⦗136/a⦘ into the other woman’s mouth, it became blood. Pharaoh himself was afflicted by thirst to the point that he was compelled to chew moist trees; yet when he chewed them, their moisture became salty and bitter in his mouth. They remained thus for seven days, drinking nothing but blood.