Eventually a new king who was unacquainted with Joseph came to power in Egypt.

Come on, let's be careful how we treat them, so that when they grow numerous, if a war breaks out they won't join our enemies, fight against us, and leave our land."

The Egyptians ruthlessly forced the Israelis to serve them,

Later, the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah.

But the midwives feared God and didn't do what the king of Egypt told them. Instead, they let the boys live.

When the king of Egypt called for the midwives, he asked them, "Why have you done this and allowed the boys to live?"

"Hebrew women aren't like Egyptian women," the midwives replied to Pharaoh. "They're so healthy that they give birth before the midwives arrive to help them."

Meanwhile, Pharaoh continued commanding all of his people, "You're to throw every Hebrew son who is born into the Nile River, but you're to allow every Hebrew daughter to live."

Later, the woman became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She saw that he was a beautiful child, and hid him for three months.

But when she was no longer able to hide him, she took a papyrus container, coated it with asphalt and pitch, placed the child in it, and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile.

Then his sister positioned herself some distance away in order to find out what would happen to him.

ThenPharaoh's daughter came down to the Nile River to bathe while her maids walked along the river bank. She saw the container among the reeds and sent a servant girl to get it.

After the child had grown 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."

Years later, after Moses had grown up, he went out to his own people, and took notice of their heavy burdens. He saw an Egyptian beating up a Hebrew, one of his own people.

Going out the next day, Moses noticed two Hebrew men fighting right in front of him. He told the one who was at fault, "Why did you strike your companion?"

The man replied, "Who appointed you to be an official judge over us? Are you planning to kill me like you killed the Egyptian?" Then Moses became terrified and told himself, "Certainly this event has become known!"

When Pharaoh heard about this matter, he tried to kill Moses. So Moses fled from Pharaoh, settled in the land of Midian, and sat down by a well.

Meanwhile, the seven daughters of a certain Midianite priest would come to draw water in order to fill water troughs for their father's sheep.

Some shepherds came to drive them away, but Moses got up, came to their rescue, and watered their sheep.

When they returned to their father Reuel, he asked, "Why have you returned so quickly today?"

"Then where is he?" He asked his daughters. "Why did you leave the man behind? Go invite him to have something to eat."

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

Later she gave birth to a son, and Moses named him Gershom, because he used to say, "I became an alien in a foreign land."

The king of Egypt eventually died, and the Israelis groaned because of the bondage. They cried out, and their cry for deliverance from slavery ascended to God.

Meanwhile, Moses continued tending the sheep that belonged to his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian. He led the sheep to the western desert and came to Horeb, God's mountain, where

the angel of the LORD appeared to him in flaming fire from the center of a bush. As Moses continued to watch, amazingly the bush kept on burning, but was not consumed.

Then Moses told himself, "I'll go over and see this remarkable sight. Why isn't the bush burning up?"

When the LORD saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from the center of the bush, "Moses! Moses!" He said, "Here I am."

"Do not come any closer," God said. "Remove your sandals from your feet, because the place where you are standing is holy ground."

Then he said, "I am the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.

The LORD said, "I have certainly seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and I have heard their cry caused by their slave masters. I really do understand their pain,

so I have come down to deliver them from their domination by the Egyptians and to bring them out of that land to a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the territory of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.

Now, listen carefully! The cry of the Israelis has come to my attention about how severely the Egyptians have been oppressing them.

So go! I am sending you to Pharaoh. Bring my people the Israelis out of Egypt."

But Moses told God, "Who am I? How can I go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelis out of Egypt?"

Moses told God, "Look! When I go to the Israelis and tell them, "The God of your ancestors sent me to you,' they'll say to me, "What is his name?' What should I say to them?"

God replied to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM," and then said, "Tell the Israelis: "I AM sent me to you.'"

God also told Moses, "Tell the Israelis, "The LORD, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob sent me to you.' This is my name forever, and this is how I am to be remembered from generation to generation.

"Go and gather the elders of Israel. Tell them, "The LORD God of your ancestors, appeared to me the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and he said, "I have paid close attention to you and to what has been done to you in Egypt.

I have said that I will bring you out of the affliction of Egypt to the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites to a land flowing with milk and honey."'

"The elders of Israel will listen to you, and then you and they are to go to the king of Egypt and say to him, "The LORD God of the Hebrews has met with us. Now, let us take a three-day journey into the desert to sacrifice to the LORD our God.'

I know that the king of Egypt won't allow you to go unless compelled to do so by force,

so I will stretch out my hand and strike Egypt with all my wonders that I will do there. After that he will release you.

I will grant this people public favor with the Egyptians, and as a result, when you leave you won't go empty-handed.

Each woman is to ask her neighbor or any foreign woman in her house for articles of gold and for clothing, and use them to clothe your sons and daughters. You will plunder the Egyptians."

Then Moses answered, "Look, they won't believe me and they won't listen to me. Instead, they'll say, "The LORD didn't appear to you.'"

Then God said, "Throw it to the ground." He threw it to the ground and it became a snake. Moses ran away from it.

God said, "I've done this so that they may believe that the LORD God of their ancestors the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob has appeared to you."

Then God said, "Put your hand back into your bosom." He returned it to his bosom and as soon as he brought it out, it was restored like the rest of his skin.

"Then if they don't believe you and respond to the first sign, they may respond to the second sign.

But if they don't believe even these two signs, and won't listen to you, then take some water out of the Nile River and pour it on the dry ground. The water you took from the Nile River will turn into blood on the dry ground."

Then Moses told the LORD, "Please, LORD, I'm not eloquent. I never was in the past nor am I now since you spoke to your servant. In fact, I talk too slowly and I have a speech impediment."

Then God asked him, "Who gives a person a mouth? Who makes him unable to speak, or deaf, or able to see, or blind, or lame? Is it not I, the LORD?

Now, go! I myself will help you with your speech, and I'll teach you what you are to say."

Then the LORD was angry with Moses and said, "There's your brother Aaron, a descendant of Levi, isn't there? I know that he certainly is eloquent. Right now he's coming to meet you and he will be pleased to see you.

You're to speak to him and tell him what to say. I'll help both you and him with your speech, and I'll teach both of you what you are to do.

He is to speak to the people for you as your spokesman and you are to act in the role of God for him.

Now pick up that staff with your hand. You'll use it to perform the signs."

Moses left and returned to his father-in-law Jethro. Moses told him, "Please let me go and return to my own people in Egypt so I can see whether they're still alive." Jethro told Moses, "Go in peace."

The LORD told Moses in Midian, "Go back to Egypt, because all the men who wanted to kill you are dead."

So Moses took his wife and sons, put them on donkeys, and headed back to the land of Egypt. Moses took the staff of God in his hand.

Then the LORD told Moses, "When you set out to return to Egypt, keep in mind all the wonders that I've put in your power, so that you may do them before Pharaoh. But I'll harden his heart so that he won't let the people go.

You are to say to Pharaoh, "This is what the LORD says: "Israel is my firstborn son.

And I say to you, "Let my son go so he may serve me. If you refuse to let him go, then I will kill your firstborn son.'"'"

But later on, at the lodging place along the way, the LORD met Moses and was about to kill him.

Zipporah took a flint knife, cut off her son's foreskin, and touched Moses' feet with it, saying while doing so, ""because you are a bridegroom of blood to me."

Moses told Aaron all of the LORD's messages that he had sent with Moses, and all of the signs that he commanded him to do.

Aaron spoke everything that the LORD had spoken to Moses, and Moses performed the miracles before the very eyes of the people.

The people believed and understood that the LORD had paid attention to the Israelis and had seen their affliction. They bowed their heads and prostrated themselves in worship.

Pharaoh said, "Who is the LORD that I should listen to him and let Israel go? I don't know about the LORD, nor will I let Israel go!"

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."

The king of Egypt replied to them, "Moses and Aaron, why are you keeping the people from their labor? Go back to your work!"

That day Pharaoh ordered the taskmasters of the people and their officials,

"You're no longer to give the people straw for making bricks, as in the past. They must gather straw for themselves.

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.'

So increase the work load on the people, and let them do it so they don't pay attention to deceptive speeches."

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

So the people scattered throughout the entire land of Egypt to collect stubble for straw.

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?"

The Israeli supervisors came and cried out to Pharaoh, "Why are you doing this to us?

No straw is being given to us, yet they're saying to us, "Make bricks!' Look, we are being beaten. It's wrong how you are treating your people!"

Then Pharaoh said, "You are lazy, lazy! That's why you're saying, "Let's go offer sacrifices to the LORD.'

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!"

The supervisors told them, "May the LORD look on you and judge you! You have made us repulsive to Pharaoh and his servants. You have put a sword in their hands to kill us."

So Moses returned to the LORD and asked him, "LORD, why have you caused trouble for this people? Why have you sent me here?

Ever since I came to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has caused trouble for this people, and you have done nothing to deliver your people."

The LORD told Moses, "Now you're about to see what I'll do to Pharaoh. Indeed, he'll send them out under compulsion and he'll drive them out of his land violently."

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

I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land where they lived as resident aliens for a time.

Also, I've heard the groaning of the Israelis whom the Egyptians have forced to labor for them, and I've remembered my covenant.

I'll bring you to the land that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. I'll give it to you as a possession. I am the LORD.'"

Then Moses reported this to the Israelis, but they did not listen to Moses due to their irritation and impatience because there was no deliverance and because of the cruel bondage.

"Go, speak to Pharaoh, king of Egypt, that he should let the Israelis go out of his land."

Then Moses said right in front of the LORD, "Look, the Israelis didn't listen to me, so how will Pharaoh? I'm not a persuasive speaker."

Then the LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron, issuing orders to them regarding the Israelis for delivery to Pharaoh, king of Egypt; that is, to bring the Israelis out of the land of Egypt.

These are the names of Levi's sons according to their genealogies: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari. Levi lived 137 years.

Gershon's sons were Libni and Shimei, according to their families.

The sons of Merari were Mahli and Mushi. These are the families of the descendants of Levi, according to their genealogies.