“What does all this mean to you?”

Can I get an exemption

From the fate of every Jew

To achieve redemption

Directly from the angry god

Who laid down the prescription:

You should never spare the rod—

It might spoil an Egyptian.

Slavery is worse than jail

But if freedom must be won

By locusts, boils and frogs and hail

And the death of Pharaoh’s son

I’ll take my chances making bricks

Of straw and clay and mud

There’s nothing you or God can fix

With a river turned to blood.