Moses’s Birth and Adoption

2 Now a man from the family of Levi married a Levite woman.^{(A) 2} The woman became pregnant and gave birth to a son; when she saw that he was beautiful,^[a] she hid him for three months.^{(B) 3} But when she could no longer hide him, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with bitumen and pitch. She placed the child in it and set it among the reeds by the bank of the Nile. ⁴ Then his sister^(C) stood at a distance in order to see what would happen to him.

⁵ Pharaoh’s daughter went down to bathe at the Nile while her servant girls walked along the riverbank. She saw the basket among the reeds, sent her slave girl, took it, ⁶ opened it, and saw him, the child – and there he was, a little boy, crying. She felt sorry for him and said, ‘This is one of the Hebrew boys.’

⁷ Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, ‘Should I go and call a Hebrew woman who can breastfeed the boy for you? ’

⁸ ‘Go’, Pharaoh’s daughter told her. So the girl went and called the boy’s mother. ⁹ Then Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, ‘Take this child and nurse him for me, and I will pay your wages.’ So the woman took the boy and nursed him. ¹⁰ When the child grew older, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. She named him Moses,^[b] ‘Because,’ she said, ‘I drew him out of the water.’

Moses in Midian

¹¹ Years later,^[c] after Moses had grown up, he went out to his own people^[d] and observed their forced labour.^(D) He saw an Egyptian striking a Hebrew, one of his people. ¹² Looking all around and seeing no one, he struck the Egyptian dead and hid him in the sand. ¹³ The next day he went out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, ‘Why are you attacking your neighbour? ’^[e]

¹⁴ ‘Who made you a commander and judge over us? ’ the man replied. ‘Are you planning to kill me as you killed the Egyptian? ’

Then Moses became afraid and thought, ‘What I did is certainly known.’

¹⁵ When Pharaoh heard about this, he tried to kill Moses. But Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in the land of Midian,^(E) and sat down by a well.^(F)

¹⁶ Now the priest of Midian^(G) had seven daughters. They came to draw water and filled the troughs to water their father’s flock. ¹⁷ Then some shepherds arrived and drove them away, but Moses came to their rescue and watered their flock. ¹⁸ When they returned to their father Reuel,^[f](H) he asked, ‘Why have you come back so quickly today? ’

¹⁹ They answered, ‘An Egyptian rescued us from the shepherds. He even drew water for us and watered the flock.’

²⁰ ‘So where is he? ’ he asked his daughters. ‘Why then did you leave the man behind? Invite him to eat dinner.’

²¹ Moses agreed to stay with the man, and he gave his daughter Zipporah^(I) to Moses in marriage. ²² She gave birth to a son whom he named Gershom,^[g] for he said, ‘I have been a resident foreigner^(J) in a foreign land.’

²³ After a long time, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned because of their difficult labour, they cried out,^(K) and their cry for help because of the difficult labour ascended to God. ²⁴ God heard their groaning, and God remembered^(L) his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.^{(M) 25} God saw the Israelites, and God knew.^(N)