Exodus 1; Exodus 2; Exodus 3

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Exodus 1

1 These are the names of the Israelites who came to Egypt with Jacob along with their households:
2 Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah,
3 Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin,
4 Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher.
5 The total number in Jacob's family was seventy. Joseph was already in Egypt.
6 Eventually, Joseph, his brothers, and everyone in his generation died.
7 But the Israelites were fertile and became populous. They multiplied and grew dramatically, filling the whole land.
8 Now a new king came to power in Egypt who didn't know Joseph.
9 He said to his people, "The Israelite people are now larger in number and stronger than we are.
10 Come on, let's be smart and deal with them. Otherwise, they will only grow in number. And if war breaks out, they will join our enemies, fight against us, and then escape from the land."
11 As a result, the Egyptians put foremen of forced work gangs over the Israelites to harass them with hard work. They had to build storage cities named Pithom and Rameses for Pharaoh.
12 But the more they were oppressed, the more they grew and spread, so much so that the Egyptians started to look at the Israelites with disgust and dread.
13 So the Egyptians enslaved the Israelites.
14 They made their lives miserable with hard labor, making mortar and bricks, doing field work, and by forcing them to do all kinds of other cruel work.
15 The king of Egypt spoke to two Hebrew midwives named Shiphrah and Puah:
16 "When you are helping the Hebrew women give birth and you see the baby being born, if it's a boy, kill him. But if it's a girl, you can let her live."
17 Now the two midwives respected God so they didn't obey the Egyptian king's order. Instead, they let the baby boys live.
18 So the king of Egypt called the two midwives and said to them, "Why are you doing this? Why are you letting the baby boys live?"
19 The two midwives said to Pharaoh, "Because Hebrew women aren't like Egyptian women. They're much stronger and give birth before any midwives can get to them."
20 So God treated the midwives well, and the people kept on multiplying and became very strong.
21 And because the midwives respected God, God gave them households of their own.
22 Then Pharaoh gave an order to all his people: "Throw every baby boy born to the Hebrews into the Nile River, but you can let all the girls live."
Copyright © 2011 Common English Bible

Exodus 2

1 Now a man from Levi's household married a Levite woman.
2 The woman became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She saw that the baby was healthy and beautiful, so she hid him for three months.
3 When she couldn't hide him any longer, she took a reed basket and sealed it up with black tar. She put the child in the basket and set the basket among the reeds at the riverbank.
4 The baby's older sister stood watch nearby to see what would happen to him.
5 Pharaoh's daughter came down to bathe in the river, while her women servants walked along beside the river. She saw the basket among the reeds, and she sent one of her servants to bring it to her.
6 When she opened it, she saw the child. The boy was crying, and she felt sorry for him. She said, "This must be one of the Hebrews' children."
7 Then the baby's sister said to Pharaoh's daughter, "Would you like me to go and find one of the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?"
8 Pharaoh's daughter agreed, "Yes, do that." So the girl went and called the child's mother.
9 Pharaoh's daughter said to her, "Take this child and nurse it for me, and I'll pay you for your work." So the woman took the child and nursed it.
10 After the child had grown up, she brought him back to Pharaoh's daughter, who adopted him as her son. She named him Moses, "because," she said, "I pulled him out of the water."
11 One day after Moses had become an adult, he went out among his people and he saw their forced labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people.
12 He looked around to make sure no one else was there. Then he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.
13 When Moses went out the next day, he saw two Hebrew men fighting with each other. Moses said to the one who had started the fight, "Why are you abusing your fellow Hebrew?"
14 He replied, "Who made you a boss or judge over us? Are you planning to kill me like you killed the Egyptian?" Then Moses was afraid when he realized: They obviously know what I did.
15 When Pharaoh heard about it, he tried to kill Moses. But Moses ran away from Pharaoh and settled down in the land of Midian. One day Moses was sitting by a well.
16 Now there was a Midianite priest who had seven daughters. The daughters came to draw water and fill the troughs so that their father's flock could drink.
17 But some shepherds came along and rudely chased them away. Moses got up, rescued the women, and gave their flock water to drink.
18 When they went back home to their father Reuel, he asked, "How were you able to come back home so soon today?"
19 They replied, "An Egyptian man rescued us from a bunch of shepherds. Afterward, he even helped us draw water to let the flock drink."
20 Reuel said to his daughters, "So where is he? Why did you leave this man? Invite him to eat a meal with us."
21 Moses agreed to come and live with the man, who gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses as his wife.
22 She gave birth to a son, and Moses named him Gershom, "because," he said, "I've been an immigrant living in a foreign land."
23 A long time passed, and the Egyptian king died. The Israelites were still groaning because of their hard work. They cried out, and their cry to be rescued from the hard work rose up to God.
24 God heard their cry of grief, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
25 God looked at the Israelites, and God understood.
Copyright © 2011 Common English Bible

Exodus 3

1 Moses was taking care of the flock for his father-in-law Jethro, Midian's priest. He led his flock out to the edge of the desert, and he came to God's mountain called Horeb.
2 The LORD's messenger appeared to him in a flame of fire in the middle of a bush. Moses saw that the bush was in flames, but it didn't burn up.
3 Then Moses said to himself, Let me check out this amazing sight and find out why the bush isn't burning up.
4 When the LORD saw that he was coming to look, God called to him out of the bush, "Moses, Moses!" Moses said, "I'm here."
5 Then the LORD said, "Don't come any closer! Take off your sandals, because you are standing on holy ground."
6 He continued, "I am the God of your father, Abraham's God, Isaac's God, and Jacob's God." Moses hid his face because he was afraid to look at God.
7 Then the LORD said, "I've clearly seen my people oppressed in Egypt. I've heard their cry of injustice because of their slave masters. I know about their pain.
8 I've come down to rescue them from the Egyptians in order to take them out of that land and bring them to a good and broad land, a land that's full of milk and honey, a place where the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites all live.
9 Now the Israelites' cries of injustice have reached me. I've seen just how much the Egyptians have oppressed them.
10 So get going. I'm sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt."
11 But Moses said to God, "Who am I to go to Pharaoh and to bring the Israelites out of Egypt?"
12 God said, "I'll be with you. And this will show you that I'm the one who sent you. After you bring the people out of Egypt, you will come back here and worship God on this mountain."
13 But Moses said to God, "If I now come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,' they are going to ask me, ‘What's this God's name?' What am I supposed to say to them?"
14 God said to Moses, "I Am Who I Am. So say to the Israelites, ‘I Am has sent me to you.'"
15 God continued, “Say to the Israelites, ‘The LORD, the God of your ancestors, Abraham's God, Isaac's God, and Jacob's God, has sent me to you.' This is my name forever; this is how all generations will remember me.
16 “Go and get Israel's elders together and say to them, ‘The LORD, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, has appeared to me. The LORD said, "I've been paying close attention to you and to what has been done to you in Egypt.
17 I've decided to take you away from the harassment in Egypt to the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, a land full of milk and honey."
18 They will accept what you say to them. Then you and Israel's elders will go to Egypt's king and say to him, "The LORD, the Hebrews' God, has met with us. So now let us go on a three-day journey into the desert so that we can offer sacrifices to the LORD our God."
19 However, I know that Egypt's king won't let you go unless he's forced to do it.
20 So I'll use my strength and hit Egypt with dramatic displays of my power. After that, he'll let you go.
21 "I'll make it so that when you leave Egypt, the Egyptians will be kind to you and you won't go away empty-handed.
22 Every woman will ask her neighbor along with the immigrant in her household for their silver and their gold jewelry as well as their clothing. Then you will put it on your sons and daughters, and you will rob the Egyptians.'"
Copyright © 2011 Common English Bible