17
"When the four hundred years were nearly up, the time God promised Abraham for deliverance, the population of our people in Egypt had become very large.
18
And there was now a king over Egypt who had never heard of Joseph.
19
He exploited our race mercilessly. He went so far as forcing us to abandon our newborn infants, exposing them to the elements to die a cruel death.
20
"In just such a time Moses was born, a most beautiful baby. He was hidden at home for three months.
21
When he could be hidden no longer, he was put outside - and immediately rescued by Pharaoh's daughter, who mothered him as her own son.
22
Moses was educated in the best schools in Egypt. He was equally impressive as a thinker and an athlete.
23
"When he was forty years old, he wondered how everything was going with his Hebrew kin and went out to look things over.
24
He saw an Egyptian abusing one of them and stepped in, avenging his underdog brother by knocking the Egyptian flat.
25
He thought his brothers would be glad that he was on their side, and even see him as an instrument of God to deliver them. But they didn't see it that way.
26
The next day two of them were fighting and he tried to break it up, told them to shake hands and get along with each other: 'Friends, you are brothers, why are you beating up on each other?'
27
"The one who had started the fight said, 'Who put you in charge of us?