After letting Pharaoh stew for a week, God told Moses to tell Aaron to tell Pharaoh to let his people go again, or he was going to infest the whole country with frogs: There would be frogs in his house, in his bed, all over his floors, in all his various household appliances, in his food, hitting him in the ass when he was trying to go to the bathroom, that sort of thing. More than your average number of frogs is what we’re trying to get across here.

Pharaoh refused, and before he knew it he was knee-deep in frogs.

Shouting to be heard over the incessant croaking, Pharaoh ordered his magicians to duplicate the trick, which they did. This meant instead of having a shitload of frogs, he now had two shitloads of frogs to deal with, but at least he had made his point, and that’s really the most important thing.

Eventually, Pharaoh got tired of getting frog guts on his ass every time he sat down and asked Moses to ask God to please cut it out with the frogs already, and in return he would let the Israelites go and make their sacrifices. Moses asked God to take away the frogs, and the next day the croaking had stopped, and there was nothing but acres of frog corpses as far as the eye could see. The Egyptians swept up all the frogs and gathered them into giant heaps, and the whole place stank even worse than it had with the river of blood.

Finally able to hear himself think without all that frog noise, Pharaoh changed his mind and decided not to let the Israelites go after all. So, Aaron, on orders from Moses who was on orders from God, smote the dust and all of the dust turned into lice. Suddenly, everything and everyone in Egypt was scratching themselves like crazy. Pharaoh told his magicians to duplicate this trick too, but they were unable to do so. Evidently, bringing forth masses of frogs was no problem, but bugs couldn’t be done without God’s help. So, the magicians reported back to Pharaoh that the lice must be the work of God, because none of them knew how to do it, and they all had advanced degrees in plagueology.

And so Moses, under orders from God, told Pharaoh once more to let his people go, or this time there would be swarms of flies. Because somehow flies are worse than lice. However, this time he added a little twist: He would send the flies to bug all of the Egyptians, but they would not go to Goshen, where all the Israelites were living. Of course, this implies that all of the previous plagues had affected the Israelites just as much as they had the Egyptians, which might go a long way toward explaining why the Israelites weren't returning Moses' phone calls anymore.

Since Pharaoh didn't immediately change his mind and let everyone go, the next day his house was filled with swarms of flies. Struggling to talk and flail wildly about with a fly swatter in each hand at the same time, Pharaoh attempted to compromise with Moses by telling him the Israelites could make sacrifices to God right there in Egypt. Moses rejected this though, claiming that if they tried that, the Egyptians would surely stone them to death because they would be sacrificing sheep, and apparently even the sheer sight of sheep filled the Egyptians with murderous rage. Again, Moses demanded Pharaoh let the Israelites go and wander for three days before making their sacrifices. Finally, Pharaoh relented and said he would let them go tomorrow if Moses would just get rid of the flies now.

So, Moses asked God to kill all the flies, and God hung the mother of all bug zappers on Pharaoh’s porch. After the flies were all dead, and the air hung heavy with the smell of burnt insects, Pharaoh once again went back on his word and refused to let the Israelites go.