These are the names of the sons of Israel who entered Egypt -- each man with his household entered with Jacob:

"Go and bring together the elders of Israel and tell them, 'The Lord, the God of your fathers, appeared to me -- the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob -- saying, "I have attended carefully to you and to what has been done to you in Egypt,

"The elders will listen to you, and then you and the elders of Israel must go to the king of Egypt and tell him, 'The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us. So now, let us go three days' journey into the wilderness, so that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God.'

You must say to Pharaoh, 'Thus says the Lord, "Israel is my son, my firstborn,

Afterward Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said, "Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, 'Release my people so that they may hold a pilgrim feast to me in the desert.'"

But Pharaoh said, "Who is the Lord that I should obey him by releasing Israel? I do not know the Lord, and I will not release Israel!"

These are the heads of their fathers' households: The sons of Reuben, the firstborn son of Israel, were Hanoch and Pallu, Hezron and Carmi. These were the clans of Reuben.

But the Lord will distinguish between the livestock of Israel and the livestock of Egypt, and nothing will die of all that the Israelites have."'"

Pharaoh sent representatives to investigate, and indeed, not even one of the livestock of Israel had died. But Pharaoh's heart remained hard, and he did not release the people.

But against any of the Israelites not even a dog will bark against either people or animals, so that you may know that the Lord distinguishes between Egypt and Israel.'

Tell the whole community of Israel, 'In the tenth day of this month they each must take a lamb for themselves according to their families -- a lamb for each household.

You must care for it until the fourteenth day of this month, and then the whole community of Israel will kill it around sundown.

For seven days you must eat bread made without yeast. Surely on the first day you must put away yeast from your houses because anyone who eats bread made with yeast from the first day to the seventh day will be cut off from Israel.

For seven days yeast must not be found in your houses, for whoever eats what is made with yeast -- that person will be cut off from the community of Israel, whether a foreigner or one born in the land.

Then Moses summoned all the elders of Israel, and told them, "Go and select for yourselves a lamb or young goat for your families, and kill the Passover animals.

It was a night of vigil for the Lord to bring them out from the land of Egypt, and so on this night all Israel is to keep the vigil to the Lord for generations to come.

The whole community of Israel must observe it.

When it was reported to the king of Egypt that the people had fled, the heart of Pharaoh and his servants was turned against the people, and the king and his servants said, "What in the world have we done? For we have released the people of Israel from serving us!"

The angel of God, who was going before the camp of Israel, moved and went behind them, and the pillar of cloud moved from before them and stood behind them.

He jammed the wheels of their chariots so that they had difficulty driving, and the Egyptians said, "Let's flee from Israel, for the Lord fights for them against Egypt!"

So the Lord saved Israel on that day from the power of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the shore of the sea.

When Israel saw the great power that the Lord had exercised over the Egyptians, they feared the Lord, and they believed in the Lord and in his servant Moses.

Then Moses led Israel to journey away from the Red Sea. They went out to the Desert of Shur, walked for three days into the desert, and found no water.

The house of Israel called its name "manna." It was like coriander seed and was white, and it tasted like wafers with honey.

The Lord said to Moses, "Go over before the people; take with you some of the elders of Israel and take in your hand your staff with which you struck the Nile and go.

I will be standing before you there on the rock in Horeb, and you will strike the rock, and water will come out of it so that the people may drink." And Moses did so in plain view of the elders of Israel.

Amalek came and attacked Israel in Rephidim.

Whenever Moses would raise his hands, then Israel prevailed, but whenever he would rest his hands, then Amalek prevailed.

Jethro, the priest of Midian, Moses' father-in-law, heard about all that God had done for Moses and for his people Israel, that the Lord had brought Israel out of Egypt.

Moses told his father-in-law all that the Lord had done to Pharaoh and to Egypt for Israel's sake, and all the hardship that had come on them along the way, and how the Lord had delivered them.

Jethro rejoiced because of all the good that the Lord had done for Israel, whom he had delivered from the hand of Egypt.

Then Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, brought a burnt offering and sacrifices for God, and Aaron and all the elders of Israel came to eat food with the father-in-law of Moses before God.

Moses chose capable men from all Israel, and he made them heads over the people, rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens.

After they journeyed from Rephidim, they came to the Desert of Sinai, and they camped in the desert; Israel camped there in front of the mountain.

Moses went up to God, and the Lord called to him from the mountain, "Thus you will tell the house of Jacob, and declare to the people of Israel:

So Moses came and summoned the elders of Israel. He set before them all these words that the Lord had commanded him,

But to Moses the Lord said, "Come up to the Lord, you and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, and worship from a distance.

and Moses wrote down all the words of the Lord. Early in the morning he built an altar at the foot of the mountain and arranged twelve standing stones -- according to the twelve tribes of Israel.

Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the seventy elders of Israel went up,

and they saw the God of Israel. Under his feet there was something like a pavement made of sapphire, clear like the sky itself.

"You are to take two onyx stones and engrave on them the names of the sons of Israel,

You are to engrave the two stones with the names of the sons of Israel with the work of an engraver in stone, like the engravings of a seal; you are to have them set in gold filigree settings.

You are to put the two stones on the shoulders of the ephod, stones of memorial for the sons of Israel, and Aaron will bear their names before the Lord on his two shoulders for a memorial.

The stones are to be for the names of the sons of Israel, twelve, according to the number of their names. Each name according to the twelve tribes is to be like the engravings of a seal.

Aaron will bear the names of the sons of Israel in the breastpiece of decision over his heart when he goes into the holy place, for a memorial before the Lord continually.

He accepted the gold from them, fashioned it with an engraving tool, and made a molten calf. Then they said, "These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt."

They have quickly turned aside from the way that I commanded them -- they have made for themselves a molten calf and have bowed down to it and sacrificed to it and said, 'These are your gods, O Israel, which brought you up from the land of Egypt.'"

Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel your servants, to whom you swore by yourself and told them, 'I will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken about I will give to your descendants, and they will inherit it forever.'"

and he said to them, "Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, 'Each man fasten his sword on his side, and go back and forth from entrance to entrance throughout the camp, and each one kill his brother, his friend, and his neighbor.'"

At three times in the year all your men must appear before the Lord God, the God of Israel.

The Lord said to Moses, "Write down these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel."

They set the onyx stones in gold filigree settings, engraved as with the engravings of a seal with the names of the sons of Israel.

The stones were for the names of the sons of Israel, twelve, corresponding to the number of their names. Each name corresponding to one of the twelve tribes was like the engravings of a seal.

For the cloud of the Lord was on the tabernacle by day, but fire would be on it at night, in plain view of all the house of Israel, throughout all their journeys.