Moses at the Burning Bush

3 Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian; he led his flock beyond the wilderness and came to Mount Horeb,^[a] the mountain of God.^(A)

⁸ He got up and ate and drank; then he went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God.^(A)

⁶ I will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink.” Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel.^(A)

²⁹ Moses said to Hobab son of Reuel the Midianite, Moses’s father-in-law, “We are setting out for the place of which the Lord said, ‘I will give it to you’; come with us, and we will treat you well, for the Lord has promised good to Israel.”^(A)

¹¹ Now Heber the Kenite had separated from the other Kenites,^[a] that is, the descendants of Hobab the father-in-law of Moses, and had encamped as far away as Elon-bezaanannim, which is near Kedesh.^(A)

¹¹ and prepare for the third day, because on the third day the Lord will come down upon Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people.^(A)

Jethro’s Advice

18 Jethro, the priest of Midian, Moses’s father-in-law, heard of all that God had done for Moses and for his people Israel, how the Lord had brought Israel out of Egypt.^{(A) 2} After Moses had sent away his wife Zipporah, his father-in-law Jethro took her back,^{(B) 3} along with her two sons. The name of the one was Gershom^[a] (for he had said, “I have been an alien in a foreign land”),^{(C) 4} and the name of the other was Eliezer^[b] (for he had said, “The God of my father was my help and delivered me from the sword of Pharaoh”). ⁵ Jethro, Moses’s father-in-law, along with Moses’s sons and wife, came into the wilderness where Moses was encamped at the mountain of God.^{(D) 6} He sent word to Moses, “I, your father-in-law Jethro, am coming to you, with your wife and her two sons.”

⁴ Remember the teaching of my servant Moses, the statutes and ordinances that I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel.^(A)