Exodus 15–17

The Song of Moses

15Then Moses and the people of Israel ^fsang this song to the Lord, saying,

^g“I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously;

the horse and his rider¹ he has thrown into the sea.

^2hThe Lord is my strength and my ⁱsong,

and he has become ^jmy salvation;

this is my God, and I will praise him,

^kmy father’s God, and ^lI will exalt him.

³The Lord is ^ma man of war;

ⁿthe Lord is his name.

^4o“Pharaoh’s chariots and his host he cast into the sea,

and his chosen ^pofficers were sunk in the Red Sea.

⁵The ^qfloods covered them;

they ^rwent down into the depths like a stone.

^6sYour right hand, O Lord, glorious in power,

your right hand, O Lord, ^tshatters the enemy.

⁷In the ^ugreatness of your majesty you overthrow your adversaries;

you send out your fury; it ^vconsumes them like stubble.

⁸At the ^wblast of your nostrils the waters piled up;

the ^xfloods stood up in a heap;

the deeps congealed in the heart of the sea.

⁹The enemy said, ^y‘I will pursue, I will overtake,

I ^zwill divide the spoil, my desire shall have its fill of them.

I will draw my sword; my hand shall destroy them.’

¹⁰You ^ablew with your wind; the ^bsea covered them;

they sank like lead in the mighty waters.

^11c“Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods?

Who is like you, majestic in holiness,

awesome in ^dglorious deeds, ^edoing wonders?

¹²You stretched out ^fyour right hand;

the earth swallowed them.

¹³“You have ^gled in your steadfast love the people whom ^hyou have redeemed;

you have ⁱguided them by your strength to your holy abode.

^14jThe peoples have heard; they tremble;

pangs have seized the inhabitants of Philistia.

¹⁵Now are the chiefs of Edom ^kdismayed;

trembling seizes the leaders of ^lMoab;

^mall the inhabitants of Canaan have melted away.

¹⁶Terror and ⁿdread fall upon them;

because of the greatness of your arm, they are still ^oas a stone,

till your people, O Lord, pass by,

till the people pass by whom ^pyou have purchased.

¹⁷You will bring them in and ^qplant them on your own mountain,

the place, O Lord, which you have made for your abode,

^rthe sanctuary, O Lord, which your hands have established.

^18sThe Lord will reign forever and ever.”

¹⁹For when ^tthe horses of Pharaoh with his chariots and his horsemen went into the sea, ^uthe Lord brought back the waters of the sea upon them, but the people of Israel walked on dry ground in the midst of the sea. ²⁰Then ^vMiriam ^wthe prophetess, the ^xsister of Aaron, took a tambourine in her hand, and ^yall the women went out after her with tambourines and dancing. ²¹And Miriam sang to them:

^z“Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously;

the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea.”

Bitter Water Made Sweet

²²Then Moses made Israel set out from the Red Sea, and they went into the wilderness of ^aShur. They went three days in the wilderness and found no water. ²³When they came to ^bMarah, they could not drink the water of Marah because it was bitter; therefore it was named Marah.^{2 24}And the people ^cgrumbled against Moses, saying, “What shall we drink?” ²⁵And he ^dcried to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a log,³ and he ^ethrew it into the water, and the water became sweet.

There the Lord⁴ made for them a statute and a rule, and there he ^ftested them, ²⁶saying, ^g“If you will diligently listen to the voice of the Lord your God, and do that which is right in his eyes, and give ear to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the ^hdiseases on you that I put on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, ⁱyour healer.”

²⁷Then ^jthey came to Elim, where there were twelve springs of water and seventy palm trees, and they encamped there by the water.

Bread from Heaven

16They ^kset out from Elim, and all the congregation of the people of Israel came to the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had departed from the land of Egypt. ²And the whole congregation of the people of Israel ^lgrumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness, ³and the people of Israel said to them, ^m“Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, ⁿwhen we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”

⁴Then the Lord said to Moses, “Behold, I am about to rain ^obread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a day’s portion every day, that I may ^ptest them, whether they will walk in my law or not. ⁵On the sixth day, when they prepare what they bring in, ^qit will be twice as much as they gather daily.” ⁶So Moses and Aaron said to all the people of Israel, ^r“At evening ^syou shall know that it was the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt, ⁷and in the morning you shall see the ^tglory of the Lord, because he has heard your grumbling against the Lord. For ^uwhat are we, that you grumble against us?” ⁸And Moses said, “When the Lord gives you in the evening meat to eat and in the morning bread to the full, because the Lord has heard your grumbling that you grumble against him—^vwhat are we? Your grumbling is not ^wagainst us but against the Lord.”

⁹Then Moses ^xsaid to Aaron, “Say to the whole congregation of the people of Israel, ^y‘Come near before the Lord, for he has heard your grumbling.’ ” ¹⁰And as soon as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the people of Israel, they looked toward the wilderness, and behold, the ^tglory of the Lord appeared in the cloud. ¹¹And the Lord said to Moses, ¹²“I ^zhave heard the grumbling of the people of Israel. Say to them, ‘At ^atwilight you shall eat meat, and ^bin the morning you shall be filled with bread. Then you shall know that I am the Lord your God.’ ”

¹³In the evening ^cquail came up and covered the camp, and in the morning ^ddew lay around the camp. ¹⁴And when the dew had gone up, there was on the face of the wilderness a fine, flake-like thing, fine as frost on the ground. ¹⁵When the people of Israel saw it, they said to one another, ^e“What is it?”¹ For they ^fdid not know what it was. And Moses said to them, ^g“It is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat. ¹⁶This is what the Lord has commanded: ‘Gather of it, each one of you, as much as he can eat. You shall each take an ^homer,² according to the number of the persons that each of you has in his tent.’ ” ¹⁷And the people of Israel did so. They gathered, some more, some less. ¹⁸But when they measured it with an omer, ⁱwhoever gathered much had nothing left over, and whoever gathered little had no lack. Each of them gathered as much as he could eat. ¹⁹And Moses said to them, “Let no one leave any of it over till the morning.” ²⁰But they did not listen to Moses. Some left part of it till the morning, and ^jit bred worms and stank. And Moses was angry with them. ²¹Morning by morning they gathered it, each as much as he could eat; but when the sun grew hot, it melted.

²²On ^kthe sixth day they gathered twice as much bread, two omers each. And when all the leaders of the congregation came and told Moses, ²³he said to them, “This is what the Lord has commanded: ‘Tomorrow is a day of ^lsolemn rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord; bake what you will bake and boil what you will boil, and all that is left over lay aside to be kept till the morning.’ ” ²⁴So they laid it aside till the morning, as Moses commanded them, and ^mit did not stink, and there were no worms in it. ²⁵Moses said, “Eat it today, for ^ltoday is a Sabbath to the Lord; today you will not find it in the field. ²⁶Six days you shall gather it, but on the seventh day, which is a Sabbath, there will be none.”

²⁷On the seventh day some of the people went out to gather, but they found none. ²⁸And the Lord said to Moses, ⁿ“How long will you refuse to keep my commandments and my laws? ²⁹See! The Lord has given you the Sabbath; therefore on the sixth day he gives you bread for two days. Remain each of you in his place; let no one go out of his place on the seventh day.” ³⁰So the people ^orested on the seventh day.

³¹Now the house of Israel called its name ^pmanna. It was ^qlike coriander seed, white, and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey. ³²Moses said, “This is what the Lord has commanded: ‘Let an omer of it be kept throughout your generations, so that they may see the bread with which I fed you in the wilderness, when I brought you out of the land of Egypt.’ ” ³³And Moses said to Aaron, “Take a ^rjar, and put an omer of manna in it, and place it before the Lord to be kept throughout your generations.” ³⁴As the Lord commanded Moses, so Aaron placed it before ^sthe testimony to be kept. ³⁵The people of Israel ^tate the manna forty years, till they came to a habitable land. They ate the manna till ^uthey came to the border of the land of Canaan. ³⁶(An omer is ^vthe tenth part of an ephah.)³

Water from the Rock

17^wAll the congregation of the people of Israel moved on from the wilderness of Sin by stages, according to the commandment of the Lord, and camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. ^2xTherefore the people quarreled with Moses and said, “Give us water to drink.” And Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you ^ytest the Lord?” ³But the people thirsted there for water, and ^zthe people grumbled against Moses and said, “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?” ⁴So Moses cried to the Lord, “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready ^ato stone me.” ⁵And the Lord said to Moses, “Pass on before the people, taking with you some of the elders of Israel, and take in your hand the staff with ^bwhich you struck the Nile, and go. ^6cBehold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb, and you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, and the people will drink.” And Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. ⁷And he called the name of the place ^dMassah¹ and ^eMeribah,² because of the quarreling of the…