Exodus 15

¹ It was then that Moses and the sons of Israel sang this song in honour of Yahweh: ‘Yahweh I sing: he has covered himself in glory, horse and rider he has thrown into the sea.

² Yah is my strength, my song, he is my salvation. This is my God, I praise him; the God of my father, I extol him.

³ Yahweh is a warrior; Yahweh is his name.

⁴ The chariots and the army of Pharaoh he has hurled into the sea; the pick of his horsemen lie drowned in the Sea of Reeds.

⁵ The depths have closed over them; they have sunk to the bottom like a stone.

⁶ Your right hand, Yahweh, shows majestic in power, your right hand, Yahweh, shatters the enemy.

⁷ So great your splendour, you crush your foes; you unleash your fury, and it devours them like stubble.

⁸ A blast from your nostrils and the waters piled high; the waves stood upright like a dyke; in the heart of the sea the deeps came together.

⁹ “I will give chase and overtake,” the enemy said “I shall share out the spoil, my soul will feast on it; I shall draw my sword, my hand will destroy them.”

¹⁰ One breath of yours you blew, and the sea closed over them; they sank like lead in the terrible waters.

¹¹ Who among the gods is your like, Yahweh? Who is your like, majestic in holiness, terrible in deeds of prowess, worker of wonders?

¹² You stretched your right hand out, the earth swallowed them!

¹³ By your grace you led the people you redeemed, by your strength you guided them to your holy house.

¹⁴ Hearing of this, the peoples tremble; pangs seize on the inhabitants of Philistia.

¹⁵ Edom’s chieftains are now dismayed, the princes of Moab fall to trembling, Canaan’s inhabitants are all unmanned.

¹⁶ On them fall terror and dread; through the power of your arm they are still as stone as your people pass, Yahweh, as the people pass whom you purchased.

¹⁷ You will bring them and plant them on the mountain that is your own, the place you have made your dwelling, Yahweh, the sanctuary, Yahweh, prepared by your own hands.

¹⁸ Yahweh will be king for ever and ever.’

¹⁹ Pharaoh’s cavalry, both his chariots and horsemen, had indeed entered the sea, but Yahweh had made the waters of the sea flow back on them, yet the sons of Israel had marched on dry ground right through the sea.[*a]

²⁰ Miriam, the prophetess, Aaron’s sister, took up a timbrel, and all the women followed her with timbrels, dancing.

²¹ And Miriam led them in the refrain: ‘Sing of Yahweh: he has covered himself in glory, horse and rider he has thrown into the sea’.

²² Moses made Israel move from their camp at the Sea of Reeds, and they made for the wilderness of Shur where they travelled for three days without finding water.

²³ They reached Marah but the water there was so bitter they could not drink it; this is why the place was named Marah.

²⁴ The people grumbled at Moses. ‘What are we to drink?’ they said.

²⁵ So Moses appealed to Yahweh, and Yahweh pointed out some wood to him; this Moses threw into the water, and the water was sweetened. There it was he charged them with statute and with ordinance, there that he put them to the test. Then he said,

²⁶ ‘If you listen carefully to the voice of Yahweh your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commandments and keep his statutes, I shall inflict on you none of the evils that I inflicted on the Egyptians, for it is I, Yahweh, who give you healing’.

²⁷ So they came to Elim where twelve water-springs were, and seventy palm trees; and there they pitched their camp beside the water.