Then they said, "The God of the Hebrews has met with us. Please let us go a three-day journey into the desert to offer sacrifices to the LORD our God so he does not strike us with pestilence or sword."

But you're to impose the previous quota of bricks that they're making. You're not to reduce it! It is because they're lazy that they're crying out, "Let's go offer sacrifices to our God.'

Go get straw for yourselves wherever you can find it, but your work quotas won't be reduced at all.'"

The taskmasters pressured them by saying, "Finish your work each day's quota just as when you were given straw."

The Israeli supervisors whom Pharaoh's taskmasters had appointed over them were beaten and told, "Why didn't you, both yesterday and today, fulfill your quota for making bricks as before?"

Now, go! Get to work! And straw won't be given to you, but you are to deliver the same number of bricks!"

The Israeli supervisors realized they were in trouble when he said, "You won't reduce each day's quota of bricks!"

Later, God told Moses, "I am the LORD.

I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as God Almighty, and did I not reveal to them my name "LORD'?

I'll take you for my own people, and I'll be your God. Then you will know that I am the LORD your God, who brings you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.

The LORD told Moses, "Listen! I've positioned you as God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron will be your prophet.

Then say to him, "The LORD God of the Hebrews, has sent me to you. He says, "Let my people go so they may serve me in the desert, but until now you haven't obeyed."'

Moses said, "It will be just as you say, so that you may know that there is no one like the LORD our God. The frogs will leave you, your house, your officials, and your people. They'll remain only in the Nile River."

The magicians told Pharaoh, "It is the finger of God!" But Pharaoh's heart was stubborn and he did not listen to them, just as the LORD had predicted.

The LORD told Moses, "Get up early in the morning and stand before Pharaoh as he's going down to the water. You are to say to him, "This is what the LORD says: "Let my people go so they can serve me.

Then Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said, "Go, offer sacrifices to your God in the land."

"It wouldn't be right to sacrifice in this way," Moses replied, "because if we do, we will sacrifice to the LORD our God what is offensive to the Egyptians. If we offer sacrifices that are offensive to the Egyptians in front of them, they'll stone us, won't they?

We must go a three-day journey into the desert, and we'll offer sacrifices to the LORD our God just as he has told us."

Then Pharaoh said, "I'll let you go so you can offer sacrifices to the LORD your God in the desert. But you must not go very far away. Pray for me."

Then the LORD told Moses, "Go to Pharaoh and say to him, "This is what the LORD God of the Hebrews says: "Let my people go so they may serve me.

Then the LORD told Moses, "Get up early in the morning, present yourself to Pharaoh, and say to him, "This is what the LORD God of the Hebrews says: "Let my people go so they may serve me.

Pray to the LORD! There has been enough of God's thunder and hail! I'll let you go, and you need not stay any longer."

But as for you and your officials, I know that you don't yet fear the LORD God."

Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and told him, "This is what the LORD God of the Hebrews says: "How long will you refuse to humble yourself before me? Let my people go, so they may serveme.

Then the officials of Pharaoh told him, "How long will this man be a snare to us? Let the people go so they may serve the LORD their God! Don't you realize yet that Egypt is about to be destroyed?"

Moses and Aaron were brought back to Pharaoh and he told them, "Go, serve the LORD your God. But exactly who will go?"

Pharaoh quickly called Moses and Aaron and said, "I've sinned against the LORD your God and against you.

Now, please forgive my sin only this time, and pray to the LORD your God that he would at least remove this from me."

No one could see anyone else, nor could anyone get up from his place for three days. But there was light for all the Israelis in their dwellings.

Moses said, "You must let us havesacrifices and burnt offerings to offer to the LORD our God.

And even our livestock must go with us. Not a hoof will be left behind because we will use some of them to serve the LORD our God, and until we get there we won't know what we need to serve the LORD."

Then Pharaoh told him, "Get away from me! Watch out that you never see my face again, because on the day you see my face, you will die!"

All these officials of yours will come down to me, prostrate themselves to me, and say, "Get out, you and all the people following you!' After that I'll go out." Then Moses angrily left Pharaoh.

You are to eat unleavened bread for seven days. On the first day be sure to remove all the leaven from your houses, because any person who eats anything leavened from the first day until the seventh will be cut off from Israel.

For seven days leaven is not to be found in your houses. Indeed, any person who eats anything leavened, is to be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether an alien or a native of the land.

Pharaoh got up during the night, he, all his officials, and all the Egyptians, and there was loud wailing in Egypt, because there was not a house without someone dead in it.

Then he summoned Moses and Aaron during the night and told them: "Get up, go out from among my people, both you and the Israelis! Go, serve the LORD as you have said.

When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them along the road through the land of the Philistines, even though it was nearer, because God had said, "If the people face war, they may change their minds and return to Egypt."

So God led the people the roundabout way of the desert toward the Reed Sea. The Israelis went up from the land of Egypt in military formation.

Moses took the bones of Joseph with him, because Joseph had made the Israelis take this solemn oath: "God will certainly take notice of you, and then you must carry my bones up with you from here."

Then the angel of God, who was going in front of the camp of Israel, moved behind them. The pillar of cloud also moved from in front of them and stood behind them,

The LORD is my strength and song, and he has become my salvation. This is my God and I'll praise him, the God of my father and I'll exalt him.

There the LORD presented to them a statute and an ordinance, and there he tested them. He said, "If you will carefully obey the LORD your God, do what he sees to be right, listen to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, then I won't inflict on you all the diseases that I inflicted on the Egyptians, because I am the LORD your healer."

"I've heard the complaints of the Israelis. Tell them, "At twilight you are to eat meat and in the morning you are to be filled with bread, so you may know that I am the LORD your God.'"

But they did not listen to Moses some people left part of it until morning, and it produced maggots and smelled bad, so Moses got angry at them.

Moses told Joshua, "Choose some men for us and go out to fight against the Amalekites. Tomorrow I'll stand on top of the hill with the staff of God in my hand."

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

while the name of the other was Eliezer, because he would say, "My father's God helped me and delivered me from Pharaoh's sword."

Moses' father-in-law Jethro, together with Moses' two sons and his wife, came to Moses in the desert where he was camped at the mountain of God.

Jethro rejoiced over all the good that the LORD had done for Israel in delivering them from the hand of the Egyptians.

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

Moses told his father-in-law, "Because the people come to me to seek God's will.

When they have a dispute, it comes to me and I decide between a person and his neighbor, and make known the statutes of God and his instructions."

Moses' father-in-law told him, "What you are doing is not good.

Now listen to me. I'll advise you, and may God be with you. You are to represent the people before God and bring the disputes to God.

You are to look for capable men among the people, men who fear God, men of integrity who hate dishonest gain. You are to set these men over them as officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens.

If you do this, and God so commands you, you will be able to stand the strain, and all these people will also go to their homes in peace."

Then Moses went up to God, and the LORD called to him from the mountain: "This is what you are to say to the house of Jacob and declare to the sons of Israel,

Moses brought the people from the camp to meet God, and they stood at the base of the mountain.

As the sound of the ram's horn grew louder and louder, Moses would speak and God would answer with thunder.

Then God spoke all these words:

"I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt from the house of slavery.

You are not to bow down to them in worship or serve them, because I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the guilt of parents on children, to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me,

"You are not to misuse the name of the LORD your God, because the LORD will not leave unpunished the one who misuses his name.

but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. You are not to do any work neither you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your livestock, nor any foreigner who lives among you

"Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.

They told Moses, "You speak to us and we will listen, but don't let God speak with us, or we may die.

Moses told the people, "Don't be afraid, for God has come to test you, so that you may fear him in order that you don't sin."

Then the people stood at a distance, and Moses approached the thick cloud where God was.

If you make an altar of stone for me, you must not build it of cut stones, because if you strike it with your chisel, you will profane it.

If he didn't lie in wait, but God let him fall into his reach, then I'll appoint for you a place to which he may flee.

"Anyone who sacrifices to a god, except the LORD alone, is to be utterly destroyed.

If you take your neighbor's coat as collateral, you are to return it to him by sunset,

"You are not to blaspheme God or curse a ruler of your people.

Three times a year all your males shall appear in the presence of the Lord GOD."

"You are to bring the best of the first fruits of your soil to the house of the LORD your God. "You are not to boil a young goat in its mother's milk."

You are to serve the LORD your God, and he will bless your food and water, and I'll remove sickness from you.

So Moses wrote down all the words of the LORD. He got up early in the morning and built an altar with twelve pillars for the twelve tribes of Israel at the base of the mountain.

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

Because God did not punish the Israeli leaders, they looked at God, yet lived to eat and drink.

So Moses got up, along with Joshua his servant, and went up on the mountain of God.

blue, purple, and scarlet material; fine linen and goat hair;

"You are to make curtains of goat hair for a tent over the tent. You are to make eleven curtains.

There is to be a screen of 20 cubits of blue, purple, and scarlet material and fine woven linen, the work of an embroiderer, for the gate of the court, and it is to have four pillars and four sockets.

There is to be an opening at its top, in the middle, with a woven binding around the opening like the opening of a coat of mail so that it cannot be torn.

You are to cut the ram into pieces, wash its entrails and legs, put them on the altar along with the pieces and its head,

I'll live among the Israelis, and I'll be their God.

They shall know that I am the LORD their God who brought them out of Egypt so that I may live among them. I am the LORD your God."

Anyone who mixes anything like it or who puts any of it on an unqualified person is to be cut off from his people.'"

Anyone who makes anything like it to use it as perfume is to be cut off from his people."

and I've filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, understanding, knowledge, and all kinds of craftsmanship

You are to observe the Sabbath, because it's holy for you. Whoever profanes it is certainly to die; indeed, whoever does work on it is to be cut off from among his people.

When he finished speaking with Moses on Mount Sinai, he gave him the two Tablets of the Testimony, tablets of stone written by the finger of God.

When the people saw that Moses took a long time to come down the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and told him, "Come here and make us a god who will go before us, because, as for this fellow Moses who led us out of the land of Egypt, we don't know what has become of him."

He took them from them and, using a tool, fashioned them into a molten calf. The people said, "This, Israel, is your god who brought you out of the land of Egypt."

They got up early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings. Then the people sat down to eat and drink, and then they got up to play.

They have been quick to turn aside from the way I commanded them, and they have made for themselves a molten calf. They have bowed down to it in worship, they have offered sacrifices to it, and they have said, "This, Israel, is your god who brought you out of the land of Egypt.'"

But Moses implored the LORD his God: "LORD, why are you angry with your people whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and a show of force?

The tablets were the work of God and the writing was God's writing, inscribed on the tablets.

They told me, "Make a god for us who will go before us because, as for this fellow Moses who brought us out of the land of Egypt, we don't know what has become of him.'