God Rebukes Pharaoh the Crocodile and the Awesome Entrance of Moses

"Take your staff and cast it down before Pharaoh." The Holy One, blessed be He, said: This wicked one exalts himself and called himself a crocodile, as it is written, "the great crocodile" (Ezekiel 29:3). Go and say to him: See this staff. It is dry wood, and it becomes a crocodile and has breath and a spirit in it, and it swallows all the staffs, and in the end it returns to dry wood. So too you: I created you from a putrid drop and gave you kingship, and you exalt yourself and say, "The Nile is mine and I made myself," and behold I am returning you to chaos and void. You swallowed all the staffs of the tribes of Israel; behold I am bringing out what you swallowed from your mouth. You forgot what happened to your ancestor, "and the LORD afflicted Pharaoh" (Genesis 12:17); so too I am bringing upon you ten afflictions for the sake of Israel. When Moses and Aaron came and stood before Pharaoh, they saw that they resembled the ministering angels: their stature like the cedars of Lebanon, the pupils of their eyes like the orbs of the sun, their beards like clusters of dates, the radiance of their faces like the radiance of the sun, the staff of God in their hand on which the Explicit Name was engraved, and the speech of their mouths like a flame of fire. Immediately dread fell upon them. Now there were four hundred gates to Pharaoh's palace, and at each and every gate were lions and bears and savage beasts, and no creature could enter there until they were fed meat so that they would not harm him. When Moses and Aaron came, they all gathered and surrounded them and licked their feet and began to escort them until they came before Pharaoh. And all the kings of east and west, when they saw them, dread fell upon them, and trembling and shuddering and terror seized Pharaoh and all who sat before him, and they removed their crowns from their heads and bowed down to them. At that moment Pharaoh needed to relieve himself and entered the privy, and twelve mice came to him and bit him on every side of his seat, and he cried out a great and bitter cry until the nobles of the kingdom heard the sound of his cry. Afterward he returned and sat upon his throne and his heart grew strong. He said to Moses and Aaron: Who are you, and from where have you come, and who sent you to me? They said to him: "The God of the Hebrews has sent me to you, saying, Let My people go that they may serve Me." Immediately he said, "I do not know the LORD" (Exodus 5:2); he never sent me a letter of peace and never brought me a gift.