Exodus 2

¹ There was a man of the tribe of Levi who had taken a woman of Levi as his wife.

² She conceived and gave birth to a son and, seeing what a fine child he was, she kept him hidden for three months.

³ When she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him; coating it with bitumen and pitch, she put the child inside and laid it among the reeds at the river’s edge.

⁴ His sister stood some distance away to see what would happen to him.

⁵ Now Pharaoh’s daughter went down to bathe in the river, and the girls attending her were walking along by the riverside. Among the reeds she noticed the basket, and she sent her maid to fetch it.

⁶ She opened it and looked, and saw a baby boy, crying; and she was sorry for him. ‘This is a child of one of the Hebrews’ she said.

⁷ Then the child’s sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, ‘Shall I go and find you a nurse among the Hebrew women to suckle the child for you?’

⁸ ‘Yes, go’ Pharaoh’s daughter said to her; and the girl went off to find the baby’s own mother.

⁹ To her the daughter of Pharaoh said, ‘Take this child away and suckle it for me. I will see you are paid.’ So the woman took the child and suckled it.

¹⁰ When the child grew up, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter who treated him like a son; she named him Moses because, she said, ‘I drew him out of the water’.[*a] Moses escapes to Midian

¹¹ Moses, a man by now, set out at this time to visit his countrymen, and he saw what a hard life they were having; and he saw an Egyptian strike a Hebrew, one of his countrymen.

¹² Looking round he could see no one in sight, so he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.

¹³ On the following day he came back, and there were two Hebrews, fighting. He said to the man who was in the wrong, ‘What do you mean by hitting your fellow countryman?’

¹⁴ ‘And who appointed you’ the man retorted ‘to be prince over us, and judge? Do you intend to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?’ Moses was frightened. ‘Clearly that business has come to light’ he thought.

¹⁵ When Pharaoh heard of the matter he would have killed Moses, but Moses fled from Pharaoh and made for the land of Midian.[*b] And he sat down beside a well.

¹⁶ Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters. They came to draw water and fill the troughs to water their father’s sheep.

¹⁷ Shepherds came and drove them away, but Moses came to their defence and watered their sheep for them.

¹⁸ When they returned to their father Reuel, he said to them, ‘You are back early today!’

¹⁹ ‘An Egyptian protected us from the shepherds;’ they said ‘yes, and he drew water for us and watered the flock.’

²⁰ ‘And where is he?’ he asked his daughters. ‘Why did you leave the man there? Ask him to eat with us.’

²¹ So Moses settled with this man, who gave him his daughter Zipporah in marriage.

²² She gave birth to a son, and he named him Gershom because, he said, ‘I am a stranger in a foreign land’. THE CALL OF MOSES

²³ During this long period the king of Egypt died. The sons of Israel, groaning in their slavery, cried out for help and from the depths of their slavery their cry came up to God.

²⁴ God heard their groaning and he called to mind his covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

²⁵ God looked down upon the sons of Israel, and he knew…