Thematic Bible: Bondage of


Thematic Bible



After a long time, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned because of their difficult labor, and they cried out; and their cry for help ascended to God because of the difficult labor.

So the Egyptians assigned taskmasters over the Israelites to oppress them with forced labor. They built Pithom and Rameses as supply cities for Pharaoh.

Years later, after Moses had grown up, he went out to his own people and observed their forced labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his people.

The king of Egypt said to them, “Moses and Aaron, why are you causing the people to neglect their work? Get to your work!”

Our fathers went down to Egypt, and we lived in Egypt many years, but the Egyptians treated us and our fathers badly.

whose hearts He turned to hate His people
and to deal deceptively with His servants.

God spoke in this way:

His descendants would be strangers
in a foreign country,
and they would enslave
and oppress them 400 years.



They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts. Their consciences confirm this. Their competing thoughts will either accuse or excuse them

But this is the covenant
that I will make with the house of Israel
after those days, says the Lord:
I will put My laws into their minds
and write them on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be My people.

“I will make an everlasting covenant with them: I will never turn away from doing good to them, and I will put fear of Me in their hearts so they will never again turn away from Me.

It is clear that you are Christ’s letter, produced by us, not written with ink but with the Spirit of the living God—not on stone tablets but on tablets that are hearts of flesh.


“Instead, this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days”—the Lord’s declaration. “I will put My teaching within them and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be My people.


This is the covenant I will make with them
after those days, says the Lord:
I will put My laws on their hearts
and write them on their minds,


Listen, earth!
I am about to bring disaster on these people,
the fruit of their own plotting,
for they have paid no attention to My word.
They have rejected My instruction.

Therefore, as a tongue of fire consumes straw
and as dry grass shrivels in the flame,
so their roots will become like something rotten
and their blossoms will blow away like dust,
for they have rejected
the instruction of the Lord of Hosts,
and they have despised
the word of the Holy One of Israel.

They are a rebellious people,
deceptive children,
children who do not want to obey the Lord’s instruction.

But they kept ridiculing God’s messengers, despising His words, and scoffing at His prophets, until the Lord’s wrath was so stirred up against His people that there was no remedy.

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.
Because you have rejected knowledge,
I will reject you from serving as My priest.
Since you have forgotten the law of your God,
I will also forget your sons.

The Lord said, “It is because they abandoned My instruction that I set in front of them and did not obey My voice or walk according to it.

They did not keep God’s covenant
and refused to live by His law.

The Lord says:

I will not relent from punishing Judah
for three crimes, even four,
because they have rejected the instruction of the Lord
and have not kept His statutes.
The lies that their ancestors followed
have led them astray.

He also said to them, “You completely invalidate God’s command in order to maintain your tradition!


“Take this book of the law and place it beside the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God so that it may remain there as a witness against you.


Hilkiah the high priest told Shaphan the court secretary, “I have found the book of the law in the Lord’s temple,” and he gave the book to Shaphan, who read it.

Then the king went to the Lord’s temple with all the men of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, as well as the priests and the prophets—all the people from the youngest to the oldest. As they listened, he read all the words of the book of the covenant that had been found in the Lord’s temple.

They taught throughout Judah, having the book of the Lord’s instruction with them. They went throughout the towns of Judah and taught the people.

They read out of the book of the law of God, translating and giving the meaning so that the people could understand what was read.

For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse, because it is written: Everyone who does not continue doing everything written in the book of the law is cursed.


He declared His covenant to you. He commanded you to follow the Ten Commandments, which He wrote on two stone tablets.

Then God spoke all these words:

The tablets were the work of God, and the writing was God’s writing, engraved on the tablets.

Moses was there with the Lord 40 days and 40 nights; he did not eat bread or drink water. He wrote the Ten Commandments, the words of the covenant, on the tablets.


Then on the day of the assembly, the Lord wrote on the tablets what had been written previously, the Ten Commandments that He had spoken to you on the mountain from the fire. The Lord gave them to me,

There on the stones, Joshua copied the law of Moses, which he had written in the presence of the Israelites.


At that time the book of Moses was read publicly to the people. The command was found written in it that no Ammonite or Moabite should ever enter the assembly of God,

Then the king went to the Lord’s temple with all the men of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, as well as the priests and the prophets—all the people from the youngest to the oldest. As they listened, he read all the words of the book of the covenant that had been found in the Lord’s temple.

There was not a word of all that Moses had commanded that Joshua did not read before the entire assembly of Israel, including the women, the little children, and the foreigners who were with them.

While he was facing the square in front of the Water Gate, he read out of it from daybreak until noon before the men, the women, and those who could understand. All the people listened attentively to the book of the law.

Ezra read out of the book of the law of God every day, from the first day to the last. The Israelites celebrated the festival for seven days, and on the eighth day there was an assembly, according to the ordinance.

when all Israel assembles in the presence of the Lord your God at the place He chooses, you are to read this law aloud before all Israel.

so you must go and read from the scroll—which you wrote at my dictation—the words of the Lord in the hearing of the people at the temple of the Lord on a day of fasting. You must also read them in the hearing of all the Judeans who are coming from their cities.


He made of no effect the law consisting of commands and expressed in regulations, so that He might create in Himself one new man from the two, resulting in peace.

He erased the certificate of debt, with its obligations, that was against us and opposed to us, and has taken it out of the way by nailing it to the cross.

So the previous command is annulled because it was weak and unprofitable

By saying, a new covenant, He has declared that the first is old. And what is old and aging is about to disappear.


This expression, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of what can be shaken—that is, created things—so that what is not shaken might remain.


Why then was the law given? It was added because of transgressions until the Seed to whom the promise was made would come. The law was put into effect through angels by means of a mediator.

We know that the law is not meant for a righteous person, but for the lawless and rebellious, for the ungodly and sinful, for the unholy and irreverent, for those who kill their fathers and mothers, for murderers,




What should we say then? Is the law sin? Absolutely not! On the contrary, I would not have known sin if it were not for the law. For example, I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, Do not covet.




He made of no effect the law consisting of commands and expressed in regulations, so that He might create in Himself one new man from the two, resulting in peace.

For through the law I have died to the law, so that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ

Now we know that whatever the law says speaks to those who are subject to the law, so that every mouth may be shut and the whole world may become subject to God’s judgment.






Your righteousness is an everlasting righteousness,
and Your instruction is true.



Above all, may the Lord give you insight and understanding when He puts you in charge of Israel so that you may keep the law of the Lord your God.

“Be very strong and continue obeying all that is written in the book of the law of Moses, so that you do not turn from it to the right or left

It is to remain with him, and he is to read from it all the days of his life, so that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, to observe all the words of this instruction, and to do these statutes.


“If a foreigner resides with you and wants to observe the Passover to the Lord, he is to do so according to the Passover statute and its ordinances. You are to apply the same statute to both the foreign resident and the native of the land.”

The same law will apply to both the native and the foreigner who resides among you.”

You are to have the same law for the foreign resident and the native, because I am Yahweh your God.”

The same law and the same ordinance will apply to both you and the foreigner who resides with you.”


Holman Christian Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2009 by Holman Bible Publishers.