Moses Is Born and Called

Exodus 2:1-25

And a man from the family of Levi went, and he took a descendent of Levi. 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. But 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. And his sister stood at a distance to know what would be done to him. And 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 and 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.” 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?” And the daughter of Pharaoh said to her, “Go.” And the girl went, and she called the mother of the boy. And 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. And 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.” And then in those days when Moses had grown up, he went out to his brothers, and he saw their forced labor, and he saw an Egyptian man striking a Hebrew man, one of his brothers. And he turned here and there, and he saw no one, and he struck the Egyptian, and he hid him in the sand. And 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?” And he said, “Who appointed you as a commander 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.” And 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. Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came and drew water and filled the troughs to water their father’s flock. And the shepherds came and drove them away, but Moses stood up and came to their rescue and watered their flock. And they came to Reuel, their father, and he said, “Why have you come so quickly today?” And they said, “An Egyptian man delivered us from the hand of the shepherds, and he even drew water for us and watered the flock.” And he said to his daughters, “Where is he? Why then have you left the man? Call him so that he can eat some food.” And Moses agreed to stay with the man, and he gave Zipporah his daughter to Moses. And she bore a son, and he called his name Gershom because he said, “I am an alien in a foreign land.” And then during those many days, the king of Egypt died, and the Israelites groaned because of the work, and they cried out, and their cry for help because of the work went up to God. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob, and God saw the Israelites, and God took notice.

LEB via Biblia API

Exodus 3:1-15

And Moses was a shepherd with the flock 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. And 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. And Moses said, “Let me turn aside and see this great sight. Why does the bush not burn up?” And 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 .” And 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.” And 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. And 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. And 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 and the Hittites and the Amorites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites. And now, look, the cry of distress of the Israelites has come to me, and also I see the oppression with which the Egyptians are oppressing them. And now come, and I will send you to Pharaoh, and you must bring my people, the Israelites, out from Egypt.” But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and that I should bring the Israelites out from Egypt?” And 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.” But Moses said to God, “Look, if I go to the Israelites and I say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they say to me, ‘What is his name?’ then what shall I say to them?” And God said to Moses, “I am that I am.” And he said, “So you must say to the Israelites, ‘I am sent me to you.’ ” And God said again to Moses, “So you must say to the Israelites, ‘Yahweh, the God of your ancestors, 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.’

LEB via Biblia API