Study Desk

"Please do," she answered. So the girl went and brought the baby's own mother.

The princess told the woman, "Take this baby and nurse him for me, and I will pay you." So she took the baby and nursed him.

Later, when the child was old enough, she took him to the king's daughter, who adopted him as her own son. She said to herself, "I pulled him out of the water, and so I name him Moses."

When they returned to their father, he asked, "Why have you come back so early today?"

So Moses decided to live there, and Jethro gave him his daughter Zipporah in marriage,

who bore him a son. Moses said to himself, "I am a foreigner in this land, and so I name him Gershom."

I am the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." So Moses covered his face, because he was afraid to look at God.

and so I have come down to rescue them from the Egyptians and to bring them out of Egypt to a spacious land, one which is rich and fertile and in which the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites now live.

Now I am sending you to the king of Egypt so that you can lead my people out of his country."

But Moses replied, "When I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors sent me to you,' they will ask me, ‘What is his name?' So what can I tell them?"

I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go unless he is forced to do so.

"I will make the Egyptians respect you so that when my people leave, they will not go empty-handed.

So the Lord asked him, "What are you holding?" "A walking stick," he answered.

Then the Lord said to Moses, "Reach down and pick it up by the tail." So Moses reached down and caught it, and it became a walking stick again.

Then the Lord said, "Put your hand inside your robe again." He did so, and when he took it out this time, it was healthy, just like the rest of his body.

So Moses took his wife and his sons, put them on a donkey, and set out with them for Egypt, carrying the walking stick that God had told him to take.

I told you to let my son go, so that he might worship me, but you refused. Now I am going to kill your first-born son.'"

Then Zipporah, his wife, took a sharp stone, cut off the foreskin of her son, and touched Moses' feet with it. Because of the rite of circumcision she said to Moses, "You are a husband of blood to me." And so the Lord spared Moses' life.

Meanwhile the Lord had said to Aaron, "Go into the desert to meet Moses." So he went to meet him at the holy mountain; and when he met him, he kissed him.

So Moses and Aaron went to Egypt and gathered all the Israelite leaders together.