God gives water out of a rock

17 Then all the Israelites continued to travel on from the desert called Sin. They moved from one place to another, as the Lord told them. When they arrived at Rephidim, they put up their tents there. But there was no water for the people to drink. ² Because of this, the people quarrelled with Moses. They said, ‘Give us water to drink!’ Moses said to them, ‘You should not quarrel with me! You should not try to test the Lord!’

³ But the people needed water to drink. They complained against Moses. They said, ‘You should not have brought us out of Egypt! You will kill us and our children and our animals. We will all die, because we have no water to drink.’

⁴ Then Moses called to the Lord for help. He said, ‘What can I do with these people? They will soon be throwing stones at me to kill me.’

⁵ The Lord said to Moses, ‘Take some of the leaders of the Israelites with you and go in front of the people. Take your stick in your hand. Take the stick that you used to hit the Nile river. Now go! ⁶ I will stand there, in front of you, by the rock at Sinai. Hit the rock with your stick, and water will come out of it. Then the people can drink.’ So Moses did this, while the leaders of the Israelites watched him.

⁷ Moses called that place Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarrelled there. They tried to test the Lord to see what he would do. They said, ‘Let us see if the Lord is really with us. Will he help us, or not?’^[a]