אֵת

Therefore do not be afraid. I will provide for you and your little ones.” So Joseph reassured his brothers and spoke kindly to them.

Then Joseph said to his brothers, “I am about to die, but God will surely visit you and bring you up from this land to the land He promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”

And Joseph made the sons of Israel take an oath and said, “God will surely attend to you, and then you must carry my bones up from this place.”

So Joseph died at the age of 110. And they embalmed his body and placed it in a coffin in Egypt.

Then a new king, who did not know Joseph, came to power in Egypt.

So the Egyptians appointed taskmasters over the Israelites to oppress them with forced labor. As a result, they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh.

But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and flourished; so the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites.

They worked the Israelites ruthlessly

…and made their lives bitter with hard labor in brick and mortar, and with all kinds of work in the fields. Every service they imposed was harsh.

“When you help the Hebrew women give birth, observe them on the birthstools. If the child is a son, kill him; but if it is a daughter, let her live.”

The midwives, however, feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt had instructed; they let the boys live.

So the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, “Why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?”

And because the midwives feared God, He gave them families of their own.

Now a man of the house of Levi married a Levite woman,

…and she conceived and gave birth to a son. When she saw that he was a beautiful child, she hid him for three months.

But when she could no longer hide him, she got him a papyrus basket and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in the basket and set it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile.

Soon the daughter of Pharaoh went down to bathe in the Nile, and her attendants were walking along the riverbank. And when she saw the basket among the reeds, she sent her maidservant to retrieve it.

When she opened it, she saw the child, and behold, the little boy was crying. So she had compassion on him and said, “This is one of the Hebrew children.”

Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and call one of the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?”

“Go ahead,” Pharaoh’s daughter told her. And the girl went and called the boy’s mother.

Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child and nurse him for me, and I will pay your wages.” So the woman took the boy and nursed him.

After looking this way and that and seeing no one, he struck down the Egyptian and hid his body in the sand.

But the man replied, “Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you planning to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid and thought, “This thing I have done has surely become known.”

When Pharaoh heard about this matter, he sought to kill Moses. But Moses fled from Pharaoh and settled in the land of Midian, where he sat down beside a well.

Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came to draw water and fill the troughs to water their father’s flock.

And when some shepherds came along and drove them away, Moses rose up to help them and watered their flock.

“An Egyptian rescued us from the shepherds,” they replied. “He even drew water for us and watered the flock.”

“So where is he?” their father asked. “Why did you leave the man behind? Invite him to have something to eat.”

Moses agreed to stay with the man, and he gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses in marriage.

And she gave birth to a son, and Moses named him Gershom, saying, “I have become a foreigner in a foreign land.”

So God heard their groaning, and He remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

God saw the Israelites and took notice.

Meanwhile, Moses was shepherding the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian. He led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.

So Moses thought, “I must go over and see this marvelous sight. Why is the bush not burning up?”

The LORD said, “I have indeed seen the affliction of My people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their oppressors, and I am aware of their sufferings.

And now the cry of the Israelites has reached Me, and I have seen how severely the Egyptians are oppressing them.