Daily Text and Bible Reading: Saturday, January 18 [Press play below]

1.1 Now these are the names of Israel’s sons who came into Egypt with Jacob, each man who came with his household:
1.2 Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah;
1.3 Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin;
1.4 Dan and Naphtali; Gad and Asher.
1.5 And all those who were born to Jacob were 70 people, but Joseph was already in Egypt.
1.6 Joseph eventually died, and also all his brothers and all that generation.
1.7 And the Israelites became fruitful and began to increase greatly, and they kept on multiplying and growing mightier at an extraordinary rate, so that the land became filled with them.
1.8 In time there arose over Egypt a new king, one who did not know Joseph.
1.9 So he said to his people: “Look! The people of Israel are more numerous and mightier than we are.
1.10 Let us deal shrewdly with them. Otherwise, they will continue to multiply, and if a war breaks out, they will join our enemies and fight against us and leave the country.”
1.11 So they appointed chiefs of forced labor over them to oppress them with hard labor, and they built storage cities for Pharaoh, namely, Pithom and Raamses.
1.12 But the more they would oppress them, the more they would multiply and the more they kept spreading out, so they felt sick with fear because of the Israelites.
1.13 Consequently, the Egyptians forced the Israelites into harsh slavery.
1.14 They made their life bitter with hard labor, as they worked with clay mortar and bricks and in every form of slavery in the field. Yes, they made them toil in harsh conditions in every form of slavery.
1.15 Later the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives whose names were Shiphrah and Puah,
1.16 and he told them: “When you help the Hebrew women to give birth and you see them on the stool for childbirth, you must put the child to death if it is a son; but if it is a daughter, she must live.”
1.17 However, the midwives feared the true God, and they did not do what the king of Egypt told them. Instead, they would keep the male children alive.
1.18 In time the king of Egypt called the midwives and said to them: “Why have you kept the male children alive?”
1.19 The midwives said to Pharaoh: “The Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women. They are lively and have already given birth before the midwife can come in to them.”
1.20 So God dealt well with the midwives, and the people kept increasing and becoming very mighty.
1.21 And because the midwives had feared the true God, he later gave them families.
1.22 Finally Pharaoh commanded all his people: “You are to throw every newborn son of the Hebrews into the Nile River, but you are to keep every daughter alive.”
2.1 About that time, a certain man of the house of Levi married a daughter of Levi.
2.2 And the woman became pregnant and gave birth to a son. When she saw how beautiful he was, she kept him concealed for three months.
2.3 When she was no longer able to conceal him, she took a papyrus basket and coated it with bitumen and pitch and put the child in it and placed it among the reeds by the bank of the Nile River.
2.4 But his sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him.
2.5 When Pharaoh’s daughter came down to bathe in the Nile, her female attendants were walking by the side of the Nile. And she caught sight of the basket in the middle of the reeds. She immediately sent her slave girl to get it.
2.6 When she opened it, she saw the child, and the boy was crying. She felt compassion for him, but she said: “This is one of the children of the Hebrews.”
2.7 Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter: “Shall I go and call a nursing woman from the Hebrews to nurse the child for you?”
2.8 Pharaoh’s daughter said to her: “Go!” At once the girl went and called the child’s mother.
2.9 Pharaoh’s daughter then said to her: “Take this child with you and nurse him for me, and I will pay you.” So the woman took the child and nursed him.
2.10 When the child grew older, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became a son to her. She named him Moses and said: “It is because I have drawn him out of the water.”
2.11 Now in those days, after Moses had become an adult, he went out to his brothers to look at the burdens they were bearing, and he caught sight of an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his brothers.
2.12 So he looked this way and that, and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.
2.13 But he went out on the following day, and there were two Hebrew men fighting with each other. So he said to the one in the wrong: “Why do you strike your companion?”
2.14 At this he said: “Who appointed you as a prince and a judge over us? Are you planning to kill me just as you killed the Egyptian?” Moses now was afraid and said: “Surely the matter has become known!”
2.15 Then Pharaoh heard about it, and he attempted to kill Moses; but Moses ran away from Pharaoh and went to dwell in the land of Midian, and he sat down by a well.
2.16 Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters, and these came to draw water and to fill the troughs to water their father’s flock.
2.17 But as usual, the shepherds came and drove them away. At this Moses got up and helped the women and watered their flock.
2.18 When they came home to their father Reuel, he exclaimed: “How is it that you have come home so quickly today?”
2.19 They replied: “A certain Egyptian rescued us from the shepherds, and he even drew water for us and watered the flock.”
2.20 He said to his daughters: “But where is he? Why did you leave the man behind? Call him, so that he may eat with us.”
2.21 After that Moses consented to stay with the man, and he gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses in marriage.
2.22 Later she bore a son, and he named him Gershom, for he said, “I have become a foreign resident in a foreign land.”
2.23 After a long time, the king of Egypt died, but the Israelites continued to groan because of the slavery and to cry out in complaint, and their cry for help because of the slavery kept going up to the true God.
2.24 In time God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
2.25 So God looked on the Israelites; and God took notice.
3.1 Moses became a shepherd of the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian. While he was leading the flock to the west side of the wilderness, he eventually came to the mountain of the true God, to Horeb.
3.2 Then Jehovah’s angel appeared to him in a flame of fire in the midst of a thornbush. As he kept looking, he saw that the thornbush was on fire, and yet the thornbush was not consumed.
3.3 So Moses said: “I will go over to inspect this unusual sight to see why the thornbush does not burn up.”
3.4 When Jehovah saw that he went over to look, God called to him out of the thornbush and said: “Moses! Moses!” to which he said: “Here I am.”
3.5 Then he said: “Do not come any nearer. Remove your sandals from your feet, because the place where you are standing is holy ground.”
3.6 He went on to say: “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Then Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at the true God.
3.7 Jehovah added: “I have certainly seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and I have heard their outcry because of those who force them to work; I well know the pains they suffer.
3.8 I will go down to rescue them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a land good and spacious, a land flowing with milk and honey, the territory of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.
3.9 Now look! The outcry of the people of Israel has reached me, and I have seen also the harsh way that the Egyptians are oppressing them.
3.10 Now come, I will send you to Pharaoh, and you will bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.”
3.11 However, Moses said to the true God: “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”
3.12 To this he said: “I will prove to be with you, and this is the sign for you that it was I who sent you: After you have brought the people out of Egypt, you people will serve the true God on this mountain.”
3.13 But Moses said to the true God: “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your forefathers has sent me to you,’ and they say to me, ‘What is his name?’ What should I say to them?”
3.14 So God said to Moses: “I Will Become What I Choose to Become.” And he added: “This is what you are to say to the Israelites, ‘I Will Become has sent me to you.’”
3.15 Then God said once more to Moses: “This is what you are to say to the Israelites, ‘Jehovah the God of your forefathers, 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 how I am to be remembered from generation to generation.
3.16 Now go, and gather the elders of Israel and say to them, ‘Jehovah the God of your forefathers has appeared to me, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and he said: “I have certainly taken notice of you and of what is being done to you in Egypt.
3.17 So I say, I will take you away from affliction at the hands of the Egyptians to the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, to a land flowing with milk and honey.”’
3.18 “They will certainly listen to your voice, and you will go, you and the elders of Israel, to the king of Egypt, and you men should say to him: ‘Jehovah the God of the Hebrews has communicated with us. So, please, let us make a three-day journey into the wilderness so that we may sacrifice to Jehovah our God.’
3.19 But I myself well know that the king of Egypt will not give you permission to go unless a mighty hand compels him.
3.20 So I will have to stretch out my hand and strike Egypt with all my extraordinary acts that I will do in it, and after that he will send you out.
3.21 And I will give this people favor in the eyes of the Egyptians, and when you go, you will by no means go empty-handed.
3.22 Each woman must ask her neighbor and the woman lodging in her house for articles of silver and of gold as well as clothing, and you will put them on your sons and your daughters; and you will plunder the Egyptians.”
4.1 However, Moses answered: “But suppose they do not believe me and do not listen to my voice, for they will say, ‘Jehovah did not appear to you.’”
4.2 Then Jehovah said to him: “What is that in your hand?” He answered: “A rod.”
4.3 He said: “Throw it on the ground.” So he threw it on the ground, and it became a serpent; and Moses fled from it.
4.4 Jehovah now said to Moses: “Reach out your hand and seize it by the tail.” So he reached out and seized it, and it became a rod in his hand.
4.5 God then said: “This is so that they may believe that Jehovah the God of their forefathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you.”
4.6 Jehovah said to him once more: “Put your hand, please, into the upper fold of your garment.” So he put his hand into the fold of his garment. When he drew it out, why, his hand was stricken with leprosy like snow!
4.7 Then he said: “Return your hand into the upper fold of your garment.” So he returned his hand into his garment. When he drew it out of the garment, it was restored like the rest of his flesh!
4.8 He said: “If they will not believe you or pay attention to the first sign, then they will certainly heed the next sign.
4.9 Still, even if they will not believe these two signs and refuse to listen to your voice, you will take some water from the Nile River and pour it out on the dry land, and the water that you take from the Nile will become blood on the dry land.”
4.10 Moses now said to Jehovah: “Pardon me, Jehovah, but I have never been a fluent speaker, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant, for I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.”
4.11 Jehovah said to him: “Who made a mouth for man, or who makes them speechless, deaf, clear-sighted, or blind? Is it not I, Jehovah?
4.12 So go now, and I will be with you as you speak, and I will teach you what you should say.”
4.13 But he said: “Pardon me, Jehovah, please send anyone whom you want to send.”
4.14 Then Jehovah’s anger blazed against Moses, and he said: “What about your brother Aaron the Levite? I know that he can speak very well. And he is now on his way here to meet you. When he sees you, his heart will rejoice.
4.15 So you must speak to him and put the words in his mouth, and I will be with you and him as you speak, and I will teach you men what to do.
4.16 He will speak for you to the people, and he will be your spokesman, and you will serve as God to him.
4.17 And you will take this rod in your hand and perform the signs with it.”
4.18 So Moses went back to Jethro his father-in-law and said to him: “I want to go, please, and return to my brothers who are in Egypt to see whether they are still alive.” Jethro said to Moses: “Go in peace.”
4.19 After that Jehovah said to Moses in Midian: “Go, return to Egypt, because all the men who were seeking to kill you are dead.”
4.20 Then Moses took his wife and his sons and lifted them onto a donkey, and he started back to the land of Egypt. Moreover, Moses took the rod of the true God in his hand.
4.21 Then Jehovah said to Moses: “After you have returned to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the miracles that I have empowered you to do. But I will allow his heart to become obstinate, and he will not send the people away.
4.22 You must say to Pharaoh, ‘This is what Jehovah says: “Israel is my son, my firstborn.
4.23 I say to you, Send my son away so that he may serve me. But if you refuse to send him away, I am going to kill your son, your firstborn.”’”
4.24 Now on the road at the lodging place, Jehovah met him and was seeking to put him to death.
4.25 Finally Zipporah took a flint and circumcised her son and caused his foreskin to touch his feet and said: “It is because you are a bridegroom of blood to me.”
4.26 So He let him go. At that time she said, “a bridegroom of blood,” because of the circumcision.
4.27 Then Jehovah said to Aaron: “Go into the wilderness to meet Moses.” So he went and met him at the mountain of the true God and greeted him with a kiss.
4.28 And Moses told Aaron all the words of Jehovah, who had sent him, and all the signs that He had commanded him to do.
4.29 After that Moses and Aaron went and gathered all the elders of the Israelites.
4.30 Aaron told them all the words that Jehovah had spoken to Moses, and he performed the signs before the eyes of the people.
4.31 At this the people believed. When they heard that Jehovah had turned his attention to the Israelites and that he had seen their affliction, they bowed down and prostrated themselves.