Now a man from the house of Levi went and took as his wife a
Levite woman. The woman conceived and bore a son, and when she saw
that he was a fine child, she hid him three months. When she could
hide him no longer, she took for him a basket made of bulrushes and
daubed it with bitumen and pitch. She put the child in it and
placed it among the reeds by the river bank. And his sister stood
at a distance to know what would be done to him. Now the daughter
of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river, while her young women
walked beside the river. She saw the basket among the reeds and
sent her servant woman, and she took it. When she opened it, she
saw the child, and behold, the baby was crying. She took pity on
him and said, “This is one of the Hebrews' children.” Then his
sister said to Pharaoh's daughter, “Shall I go and call you a nurse
from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?” And Pharaoh's
daughter said to her, “Go.” So the girl went and called the child's
mother. And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, “Take this child away
and nurse him for me, and I will give you your wages.” So the woman
took the child and nursed him. When the child grew older, she
brought him to Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son. She named
him Moses, “Because,” she said, “I drew him out of the water.”
One day, when Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and
looked on their burdens, and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew,
one of his people. He looked this way and that, and seeing no one,
he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. When he went
out the next day, behold, two Hebrews were struggling together. And
he said to the man in the wrong, “Why do you strike your
companion?” He answered, “Who made you a prince and a judge over
us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses
was afraid, and thought, “Surely the thing is known.” When Pharaoh
heard of it, he sought to kill Moses. But Moses fled from Pharaoh
and stayed in the land of Midian. And he sat down by a well.
Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came and
drew water and filled the troughs to water their father's flock.
The shepherds came and drove them away, but Moses stood up and
saved them, and watered their flock. When they came home to their
father Reuel, he said, “How is it that you have come home so soon
today?” They said, “An Egyptian delivered us out of the hand of the
shepherds and even drew water for us and watered the flock.” He
said to his daughters, “Then where is he? Why have you left the
man? Call him, that he may eat bread.” And Moses was content to
dwell with the man, and he gave Moses his daughter Zipporah. She
gave birth to a son, and he called his name Gershom, for he said,
“I have been a sojourner in a foreign land.”
During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of
Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help.
Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. And God heard
their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with
Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel—and God knew.
