^20 (A)At this time Moses was born, and ^(B)was well pleasing to God; and he was brought up in his father’s house for three months. ²¹ But ^(C)when he was set out, ^(D)Pharaoh’s daughter took him away and brought him up as her own son. ²² And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was ^(E)mighty in words and deeds.

^23 (F)“Now when he was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brethren, the children of Israel. ²⁴ And seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended and avenged him who was oppressed, and struck down the Egyptian. ²⁵ For he supposed that his brethren would have understood that God would deliver them by his hand, but they did not understand. ²⁶ And the next day he appeared to two of them as they were fighting, and tried to reconcile them, saying, ‘Men, you are brethren; why do you wrong one another?’ ²⁷ But he who did his neighbor wrong pushed him away, saying, ^(G)‘Who made you a ruler and a judge over us? ²⁸ Do you want to kill me as you did the Egyptian yesterday?’ ^29 (H)Then, at this saying, Moses fled and became a dweller in the land of Midian, where he ^(I)had two sons.

^30 (J)“And when forty years had passed, an Angel ^[a]of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire in a bush, in the wilderness of Mount Sinai. ³¹ When Moses saw it, he marveled at the sight; and as he drew near to observe, the voice of the Lord came to him, ³² saying, ^(K)‘I am the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ And Moses trembled and dared not look. ^33 (L)‘Then the Lord said to him, “Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground. ³⁴ I have surely ^(M)seen the oppression of My people who are in Egypt; I have heard their groaning and have come down to deliver them. And now come, I will ^(N)send you to Egypt.” ’

³⁵ “This Moses whom they rejected, saying, ^(O)‘Who made you a ruler and a judge?’ is the one God sent to be a ruler and a deliverer ^(P)by the hand of the Angel who appeared to him in the bush. ^36 (Q)He brought them out, after he had ^(R)shown wonders and signs in the land of Egypt, ^(S)and in the Red Sea, ^(T)and in the wilderness forty years.