Exodus 1–15

Israel and Oppression in Egypt

1And these are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt; with Jacob, they each came with his family:^{a 2}Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah; ³Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin; ⁴Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher. ⁵And all those who descended from Jacob^b were seventy individuals,^c and Joseph was in Egypt. ⁶And Joseph died and all of his brothers and all of that generation. ⁷And the Israelites^d were fruitful and multiplied and were many and were very, very numerous, and the land was filled with them.

⁸And a new king rose over Egypt who did not know Joseph. ⁹And he said to his people, “Look, the people of the Israelites^e are greater and more numerous than us. ¹⁰Come, we must deal shrewdly with them, lest they become many, and when war happens, they also will join our enemies and will fight against us and go up from the land.” ¹¹And they appointed commanders of forced labor over them in order to oppress them with their forced labor,^f and they built storage cities for Pharaoh—Pithom and Rameses. ¹²And as he oppressed them, so they became many, and so they spread out, and the Egyptians were afraid because of the presence of the Israelites.^{g 13}And the Egyptians ruthlessly compelled the Israelites^h to work. ¹⁴And they made their lives bitter with hard work with mortar and with bricks and with all sorts of work in the field—with all their work in which they ruthlessly enslaved them.

¹⁵And the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives—of whom the name of the one was Shiphrah and the name of the second was Puah—¹⁶and he said, “When you help the Hebrews give birth, you will look upon the pairs of testicles; if he is a son, you will put him to death, and if she is a daughter, she will live.” ¹⁷But the midwives feared God, and they did not do as the king of Egypt had said to them. They let the boys live. ¹⁸And the king of Egypt summoned the midwives, and he said to them, “Why have you done this thing and let the boys live?” ¹⁹And the midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, because they are vigorous; before the midwife comes to them, they have given birth.” ²⁰And God did the midwives good, and the Israelite people became many and were very numerous. ²¹And soⁱ because the midwives feared God, he gave them families.^{j 22}And Pharaoh commanded all his people, saying, “Every son who is born you will throw into the Nile, and every daughter you will let live.”

The Birth and Early Life of Moses

2And a man from the family^a of Levi went, and he took a descendent of Levi.^{b 2}And the woman conceived, and she gave birth to a son, and she saw him, that he was a fine baby, and she hid him three months. ³But when she could no longer hide him, she got a papyrus basket for him, and she coated it with tar and with pitch, and she placed the boy in it, and she placed it among the reeds on the bank of the Nile. ⁴And his sister stood at a distance to know what would be done to him. ⁵And the daughter of Pharaoh went down to wash at the Nile, while her maidservants were walking alongside the Nile, and she saw the basket in the midst of the reeds, and she sent her slave woman for it and took it ⁶and opened it and saw him—the boy—and it was a lad weeping, and she had compassion for him and said, “This must be from the boys of the Hebrews.”^{c 7}And his sister said to the daughter of Pharaoh, “Shall I go and call for you a woman from the Hebrews who is nursing so that she will nurse the boy for you?” ⁸And the daughter of Pharaoh said to her, “Go.” And the girl went, and she called the mother of the boy. ⁹And the daughter of Pharaoh said, “Take this boy and nurse him for me, and I myself will give you wages, and the woman took the boy, and she nursed him. ¹⁰And the boy grew, and she brought him to the daughter of Pharaoh, and he became her son, and she called his name Moses, and she said, “Because I drew him out from the water.”

¹¹And then^d in those days when Moses had grown up, he went out to his brothers, and he saw their forced labor,^e and he saw an Egyptian man striking a Hebrew man, one of his brothers.^{f 12}And he turned here and there, and he saw no one,^g and he struck the Egyptian, and he hid him in the sand. ¹³And he went out on the second day, and there were two Hebrew men fighting, and he said to the guilty one, “Why do you strike your neighbor?” ¹⁴And he said, “Who appointed you as a commander^h and a judge over us? Are you intending to kill me like you killed the Egyptian?” And Moses was afraid, and he said, “Surely the matter has become known.” ¹⁵And Pharaoh heard this matter, and he sought to kill Moses, and Moses fled from Pharaoh, and he lived in the land of Midian, and he lived at a certain well.ⁱ

¹⁶Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came and drew water and filled the troughs to water their father’s flock.^{j 17}And the shepherds came and drove them away, but Moses stood up and came to their rescue and watered their flock. ¹⁸And they came to Reuel, their father, and he said, “Why have you come so quickly^k today?” ¹⁹And they said, “An Egyptian man delivered us from the hand of the shepherds, and he even drew water for us and watered the flock.” ²⁰And he said to his daughters, “Where is he? Why then^l have you left the man? Call him so that he can eat some food.”^{m 21}And Moses agreed to stay with the man, and he gave Zipporah his daughter to Moses. ²²And she bore a son, and he called his name Gershom because he said, “I am an alien in a foreign land.”ⁿ

²³And then^o during those many days, the king of Egypt died, and the Israelites^p groaned because of the work, and they cried out, and their cry for help because of the work went up to God. ²⁴And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob, ²⁵and God saw the Israelites,^q and God took notice.^r

Yahweh’s Plan to Rescue the Israelites

3And Moses was a shepherd with the flock^a of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the west of the desert, and he came to the mountain of God, to Horeb. ²And the angel of Yahweh appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush, and he looked, and there was the bush burning with fire, but the bush was not being consumed. ³And Moses said, “Let me turn aside and see this great sight. Why does the bush not burn up?” ⁴And Yahweh saw that he turned aside to see, and God called to him from the midst of the bush, and he said, “Moses, Moses.” And he said, “Here I am.” ⁵And he said, “You must not come near to here. Take off your sandals from on your feet, because the place on which you are standing, it is holy ground.” ⁶And he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face because he was afraid of looking at God.

⁷And Yahweh said, “Surely I have seen the misery of my people who are in Egypt, and I have heard their cry of distress because of their oppressors, for I know their sufferings. ⁸And I have come down to deliver them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up from this land to a good and wide land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites^b and the Hittites^c and the Amorites^d and the Perizzites^e and the Hivites^f and the Jebusites.^{g 9}And now, look, the cry of distress of the Israelites^h has come to me, and also I see the oppression with which the Egyptians are oppressing them. ¹⁰And now come, and I will send you to Pharaoh, and you must bring my people, the Israelites,ⁱ out from Egypt.”

¹¹But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and that I should bring the Israelites^j out from Egypt?” ¹²And he said, “Because I am with you, and this will be the sign for you that I myself have sent you: When you bring the people out from Egypt, you will serve God on this mountain.” ¹³But Moses said to God, “Look, if I go to the Israelites^k and I say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors^l has sent me to you,’ and they say to me, ‘What is his name?’ then what shall I say to them?” ¹⁴And God said to Moses, “I am that I am.” And he said, “So you must say to the Israelites,^m ‘I am sent me to you.’ ”

¹⁵And God said again to Moses, “So you must say to the Israelites,ⁿ ‘Yahweh, the God of your ancestors,^o the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. This is my name forever, and this is my remembrance from generation to generation.’ ¹⁶Go and gather the elders of Israel and say to them, ‘Yahweh, the God of your ancestors,^p appeared to me, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, “I have carefully attended to you and what has been done to you in Egypt.” ¹⁷And I said, “I will bring you up from the misery of Egypt to the land of the Canaanites^q and the Hittites^r and the Amorites^s and the Perizzites^t and the Hivites^u and the Jebusites,^v to a land flowing with milk and honey.” ’ ¹⁸And they will listen to your voice, and you will go, you and the elders of Israel, to the king of Egypt, and you will say to him, ‘Yahweh, the God of the Hebrews has met with us, and now let us please go on a journey of three days into the desert, and let us sacrifice to Yahweh our God.’

¹⁹But I myself know that the king of Egypt will not allow you to go unless compelled by a strong hand.^{w 20}And I will stretch out my hand, and I will strike Egypt with all of my wonders that I will do in its midst, and afterward^x he will release you. ²¹And I will give this people favor in the eyes of the Egyptians, and then^y when you go, you will not go empty-handed. ²²And a woman will ask from her neighbor and from the woman dwelling as an alien in her house for objects of silver and objects of gold and garments, and you will put them on your sons and on your daughters; and you will plunder Egypt.”

Yahweh Provides Signs and Help for Speaking

4And Moses answered, and he said, “And if they do not believe me and they do not listen to…