Exodus 2

⁵⁹and Amram’s wife was named Jochebed. She was also a daughter of Levi, born to Levi in Egypt. To Amram she bore Aaron, Moses, and their sister Miriam.

¹⁶These were the names of the sons of Levi according to their records: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari. Levi lived 137 years.

¹⁷The sons of Gershon were Libni and Shimei, by their clans.

¹²The sons of Kohath: Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel—four in all.

¹³The sons of Amram: Aaron and Moses. Aaron and his descendants were set apart forever to consecrate the most holy things, to burn incense before the Lord, to minister before Him, and to pronounce blessings in His name forever.

¹The sons of Levi: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari.

²The sons of Kohath: Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel.

²³By faith Moses’ parents hid him for three months after his birth, because they saw that he was a beautiful child, and they were unafraid of the king’s edict.

²⁰At that time Moses was born, and he was beautiful in the sight of God. For three months he was nurtured in his father’s house.

²²Then Pharaoh commanded all his people: “Every son born to the Hebrews you must throw into the Nile, but every daughter you may allow to live.”

¹⁹He exploited our people and oppressed our fathers, forcing them to abandon their infants so they would die.

¹⁴Make for yourself an ark of gopher wood; make rooms in the ark and coat it with pitch inside and out.

²which sends couriers by sea, in papyrus vessels on the waters. Go, swift messengers, to a people tall and smooth-skinned, to a people widely feared, to a powerful nation of strange speech, whose land is divided by rivers.

¹⁶When Herod saw that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was filled with rage. Sending orders, he put to death all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, according to the time he had learned from the Magi.

¹³When the Magi had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up!” he said. “Take the Child and His mother and flee to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the Child to kill Him.”

⁵⁹and Amram’s wife was named Jochebed. She was also a daughter of Levi, born to Levi in Egypt. To Amram she bore Aaron, Moses, and their sister Miriam.

²⁰Then Miriam the prophetess, Aaron’s sister, took a tambourine in her hand, and all the women followed her with tambourines and dancing.

⁴For I brought you up from the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of slavery. I sent Moses before you, as well as Aaron and Miriam.

¹In the first month, the whole congregation of Israel entered the Wilderness of Zin and stayed in Kadesh. There Miriam died and was buried.

¹Then Miriam and Aaron criticized Moses because of the Cushite woman he had married, for he had taken a Cushite wife.

²“Does the Lord speak only through Moses?” they said. “Does He not also speak through us?” And the Lord heard this.

²¹When he was set outside, Pharaoh’s daughter took him and brought him up as her own son.

⁵“For the cause of the oppressed and for the groaning of the needy, I will now arise,” says the Lord. “I will bring safety to him who yearns.”

⁹The Lord is a refuge for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble.

²⁰Then the Lord said to Moses, “Get up early in the morning, and when Pharaoh goes out to the water, stand before him and tell him that this is what the Lord says: ‘Let My people go, so that they may worship Me.

¹For the choirmaster. Of the sons of Korah. According to Alamoth. A song. God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in times of trouble.

¹⁵Go to Pharaoh in the morning as you see him walking out to the water. Wait on the bank of the Nile to meet him, and take in your hand the staff that was changed into a snake.

⁵⁰May You forgive Your people who have sinned against You and all the transgressions they have committed against You, and may You grant them compassion in the eyes of their captors to show them mercy.

⁸Finally, all of you, be like-minded and sympathetic, love as brothers, be tenderhearted and humble.

²¹When he was set outside, Pharaoh’s daughter took him and brought him up as her own son.

¹¹O Lord, may Your ear be attentive to my prayer and to the prayers of Your servants who delight to revere Your name. Give Your servant success this day, I pray, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man.” (At that time I was the cupbearer to the king.)

⁴⁶He made them objects of compassion to all who held them captive.

¹The king’s heart is a waterway in the hand of the Lord; He directs it where He pleases.

⁴And his sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him.

⁵⁹and Amram’s wife was named Jochebed. She was also a daughter of Levi, born to Levi in Egypt. To Amram she bore Aaron, Moses, and their sister Miriam.

¹Then Miriam and Aaron criticized Moses because of the Cushite woman he had married, for he had taken a Cushite wife.

²⁰Then Miriam the prophetess, Aaron’s sister, took a tambourine in her hand, and all the women followed her with tambourines and dancing.

³“Listen to Me, O house of Jacob, all the remnant of the house of Israel, who have been sustained from the womb, carried along since birth.

⁴Even to your old age, I will be the same, and I will bear you up when you turn gray. I have made you, and I will carry you; I will sustain you and deliver you.

¹⁰Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me.

²⁰And Amram married his father’s sister Jochebed, and she bore him Aaron and Moses. Amram lived 137 years.

⁸Then I passed by and saw you, and you were indeed old enough for love. So I spread My cloak over you and covered your nakedness. I pledged Myself to you, entered into a covenant with you, and you became Mine, declares the Lord God.

²⁴By faith Moses, when he was grown, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter.

²¹When he was set outside, Pharaoh’s daughter took him and brought him up as her own son.

²²So Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in speech and action.

¹¹The angel of the Lord proceeded: “Behold, you have conceived and will bear a son. And you shall name him Ishmael, for the Lord has heard your cry of affliction.

²⁰So in the course of time, Hannah conceived and gave birth to a son. She named him Samuel, saying, “Because I have asked for him from the Lord.”

²¹She will give birth to a Son, and you are to give Him the name Jesus, because He will save His people from their sins.”

¹Behold what manner of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God. And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know Him.

²⁴By faith Moses, when he was grown, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter.

²⁵He chose to suffer oppression with God’s people rather than to experience the fleeting enjoyment of sin.

²²So Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in speech and action.

²³When Moses was forty years old, he decided to visit his brothers, the children of Israel.

¹¹So the Egyptians appointed taskmasters over the Israelites to oppress them with forced labor. As a result, they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh.

²⁸Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

¹⁸“The Spirit of the Lord is on Me, because He has anointed Me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to release the oppressed,

⁷The Lord said, “I have indeed seen the affliction of My people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their oppressors, and I am aware of their sufferings.

²⁴And when he saw one of them being mistreated, Moses went to his defense and avenged him by striking down the Egyptian who was oppressing him.

²⁵He assumed his brothers would understand that God was using him to deliver them, but they did not.

²⁶The next day he came upon two Israelites who were fighting, and he tried to reconcile them, saying, ‘Men, you are brothers. Why are you mistreating each other?’

²⁷But the man who was abusing his neighbor pushed Moses aside and said, ‘Who made you ruler and judge over us?

⁷The very fact that you have lawsuits among you means that you are thoroughly defeated already. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated?

⁸Instead, you yourselves cheat and do wrong, even against your own brothers!

¹⁴But Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed Me judge or executor between you?”

²³When Jesus returned to the temple courts and began to teach, the chief priests and elders of the people came up to Him. “By what authority are You doing these things?” they asked. “And who gave You this authority?”

¹⁹“Here comes that dreamer!” they said to one another.

²⁰“Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits. We can say that a vicious animal has devoured him. Then we shall see what becomes of his dreams!”

²The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together, against the Lord and against His Anointed One:

³“Let us break Their chains and cast away Their cords.”

⁹“Get out of the way!” they replied. And they declared, “This one came here as a foreigner, and he is already acting like a judge! Now we will treat you worse than them.” And they pressed in on Lot and moved in to break down the door.

¹⁴But his subjects hated him and sent a delegation after him to say, ‘We do not want this man to rule over us.’

²⁷By faith Moses left Egypt, not fearing the king’s anger; he persevered because he saw Him who is invisible.

²⁹At this remark, Moses fled to the land of Midian, where he lived as a foreigner and had two sons.

¹¹As evening approached, he made the camels kneel down near the well outside the town at the time when the women went out to draw water.

²He looked and saw a well in the field, and near it lay three flocks of sheep, because the sheep were watered from this well. And a large stone covered the mouth of the well.

¹Now Ahab told Jezebel everything that Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword.

²So Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, “May the gods deal with me, and ever so severely, if by this time tomorrow I have not made your life like the lives of those you killed!”

⁶Since Jacob’s well was there, Jesus, weary from His journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour.

¹¹As evening approached, he made the camels kneel down near the well outside the town at the time when the women went out to draw water.

¹Meanwhile, Moses was shepherding the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian. He led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.

¹¹And as they were climbing the hill to the city, they met some young women coming out to draw water and asked, “Is the seer here?”

¹⁴Now may it happen that the girl to whom I say, ‘Please let down your jar that I may drink,’ and who responds, ‘Drink, and I will water your camels as well’—let her be the one You have appointed for Your servant Isaac. By this I will know that You have shown kindness to my master.”

¹⁵Before the servant had finished praying, Rebekah came out with her jar on her shoulder. She was the daughter of Bethuel son of Milcah, the wife of Abraham’s brother Nahor.

⁶“Is he well?” Jacob inquired. “Yes,” they answered, “and here comes his daughter Rachel with his sheep.”

⁷“Look,” said Jacob, “it is still broad daylight; it is not yet time to gather the livestock. Water the sheep and take them back to pasture.”

⁴⁵Pharaoh gave Joseph the name Zaphenath-paneah, and he gave him Asenath daughter of Potiphera, priest of On, to be his wife. And Joseph took charge of all the land of Egypt.

¹⁰As soon as Jacob saw Rachel, the daughter of his mother’s brother Laban, with Laban’s sheep, he went up and rolled the stone away from the mouth of the well and watered his uncle’s sheep.

²⁵But when Abraham complained to Abimelech about a well that Abimelech’s servants had seized,

¹²After looking this way and that and seeing no one, he struck down the Egyptian and hid his body in the sand.

¹⁵So the Philistines took dirt and stopped up all the wells that his father’s servants had dug in the days of his father Abraham.

¹⁶Then Abimelech said to Isaac, “Depart from us, for you are much too powerful for us.”

¹Meanwhile, Moses was shepherding the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian. He led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.

²⁹Then Moses said to Hobab, the son of Moses’ father-in-law Reuel the Midianite, “We are setting out for the place of which the Lord said: ‘I will give it to you.’ Come with us, and we will treat you well, for the Lord has promised good things to Israel.”

¹⁸Then Moses went back to his father-in-law Jethro and said to him, “Please let me return to my brothers in Egypt to see if they are still alive.” “Go in peace,” Jethro replied.

¹Now Moses’ father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian, heard about all that God had done for Moses and His people Israel, and how the Lord had brought Israel out of Egypt.

²After Moses had sent back his wife Zipporah, his father-in-law Jethro had received her,

²⁰But if a person who is unclean does not purify himself, he will be cut off from the assembly, because he has defiled the sanctuary of the Lord. The water of purification has not been sprinkled on him; he is unclean.

¹⁰As soon as Jacob saw Rachel, the daughter of his mother’s brother Laban, with Laban’s sheep, he went up and rolled the stone away from the mouth of the well and watered his uncle’s sheep.

¹¹When the Canaanites of the land saw the mourning at the threshing floor of Atad, they said, “This is a solemn ceremony of mourning by the Egyptians.” Thus the place across the Jordan is called Abel-mizraim.

⁵⁴Then Jacob offered a sacrifice on the mountain and invited his relatives to eat a meal. And after they had eaten, they spent the night on the mountain.

²⁵Since the brothers had been told that they were going to eat a meal there, they prepared their gift for Joseph’s arrival at noon.

⁵And I will bring a bit of bread so that you may refresh yourselves. This is why you have passed your servant’s way. After that, you may continue on your way.” “Yes,” they replied, “you may do as you have said.”

²Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it.

³²but no stranger had to lodge on the street, for my door has been open to the traveler—

²and said, “My lords, please turn aside into the house of your servant; wash your feet and spend the night. Then you can rise early and go on your way.” “No,” they answered, “we will spend the night in the square.”

³But Lot insisted so strongly that they followed him into his house. He prepared a feast for them and baked unleavened bread, and they ate.

³⁸I have been with you for twenty years now. Your sheep and goats have not miscarried, nor have I eaten the rams of your flock.

³⁹I did not bring you anything torn by wild beasts; I bore the loss myself. And you demanded payment from me for what was stolen by day or night.

⁵Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, for God has said: “Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you.”

⁶Of course, godliness with contentment is great gain.

¹⁰When the child had grown older, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. She named him Moses and explained, “I drew him out of the water.”

²After Moses had sent back his wife Zipporah, his father-in-law Jethro had received her,

³along with her two sons. One son was named Gershom, for Moses had said, “I have been a foreigner in a foreign land.”

²⁵He chose to suffer oppression with God’s people rather than to experience the fleeting enjoyment of sin.

¹³All these people died in faith, without having received the things they were promised. However, they saw them and welcomed them from afar. And they acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.

¹⁴Now those who say such things show that they are seeking a country of their own.

²⁹At this remark, Moses fled to the land of Midian, where he lived as a foreigner and had two sons.

²¹You must not exploit or oppress a foreign resident, for you yourselves were foreigners in the land of Egypt.

¹⁹I am a stranger on the earth; do not hide Your commandments from me.

¹²Hear my prayer, O Lord, and give ear to my cry for help; do not be deaf to my weeping. For I am a foreigner dwelling with You, a stranger like all my fathers.

²⁰they wandered from nation to nation, from one kingdom to another.

²⁰Then the Lord said, “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great. Because their sin is so grievous,

²¹I will go down to see if their actions fully justify the outcry that has reached Me. If not, I will find out.”

⁴Look, the wages you withheld from the workmen who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of Hosts.

⁷The Lord said, “I have indeed seen the affliction of My people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their oppressors, and I am aware of their sufferings.

⁸I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.

³⁰After forty years had passed, an angel appeared to Moses in the flames of a burning bush in the desert near Mount Sinai.

²²You must not mistreat any widow or orphan.

²³If you do mistreat them, and they cry out to Me in distress, I will surely hear their cry.

⁶But the Egyptians mistreated us and afflicted us, putting us to hard labor.

⁷So we called out to the Lord, the God of our fathers; and the Lord heard our voice and saw our affliction, toil, and oppression.

³Stay in this land as a foreigner, and I will be with you and bless you. For I will give all these lands to you and your offspring, and I will confirm the oath that I swore to your father Abraham.

⁴²For He remembered His holy promise to Abraham His servant.

⁵Furthermore, I have heard the groaning of the Israelites, whom the Egyptians are enslaving, and I have remembered My covenant.

¹⁴But I will judge the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will depart with many possessions.

¹⁵You, however, will go to your fathers in peace and be buried at a ripe old age.

⁷²to show mercy to our fathers and to remember His holy covenant,

⁷³the oath He swore to our father Abraham, to grant us

²⁴For He has not despised or detested the torment of the afflicted. He has not hidden His face from him, but has attended to his cry for help.

³¹and they believed. And when they heard that the Lord had attended to the Israelites and had seen their affliction, they bowed down and worshiped.

²²Cast your burden upon the Lord and He will sustain you; He will never let the righteous be shaken.

⁷The Lord said, “I have indeed seen the affliction of My people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their oppressors, and I am aware of their sufferings.

⁸I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.

²⁵“The Lord has done this for me. In these days He has shown me favor and taken away my disgrace among the people.”

⁶For the Lord guards the path of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.

²³Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you workers of lawlessness!’