Dearly beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, we come tonight to the first plague, or first strike, with which God smote Egypt in the days of Moses and Aaron. That plague, of course, was the one in which water was turned into blood. We will look at Moses' account of what went down on that Egyptian morning, perhaps in late summer. And we will see what the text is interested in showing us. Primarily, its point is to reveal the identity of Yahweh as the one who will not be thwarted or prevented from delivering His people. He is capable of taking Egypt and making its source of life into a realm of pollution and death. He is the one who threatens and carries out His threats. He is Yahweh, and Pharaoh must obey His command and let His people go.