Exodus 4:18-31

Good News Translation

Moses Returns to Egypt

¹⁸ Then Moses went back to Jethro, his father-in-law, and said to him, “Please let me go back to my relatives in Egypt to see if they are still alive.” Jethro agreed and told him good-bye.

¹⁹ While Moses was still in Midian, the Lord said to him, “Go back to Egypt, for all those who wanted to kill you are dead.” ²⁰ So Moses took his wife and his sons, put them on a donkey, and set out with them for Egypt, carrying the walking stick that God had told him to take.

²¹ Again the Lord said to Moses, “Now that you are going back to Egypt, be sure to perform before the king all the miracles which I have given you the power to do. But I will make the king stubborn, and he will not let the people go. ²² Then you must tell him that I, the Lord, say, ‘Israel is my first-born son. ^23 (A)I told you to let my son go, so that he might worship me, but you refused. Now I am going to kill your first-born son.’”

²⁴ At a camping place on the way to Egypt, the Lord met Moses and tried to kill him. ^25-26 Then Zipporah, his wife, took a sharp stone, cut off the foreskin of her son, and touched Moses' feet^[a] with it. Because of the rite of circumcision she said to Moses, “You are a husband of blood to me.” And so the Lord spared Moses' life.

²⁷ Meanwhile the Lord had said to Aaron, “Go into the desert to meet Moses.” So he went to meet him at the holy mountain; and when he met him, he kissed him. ²⁸ Then Moses told Aaron everything that the Lord had said when he told him to return to Egypt; he also told him about the miracles which the Lord had ordered him to perform. ²⁹ So Moses and Aaron went to Egypt and gathered all the Israelite leaders together. ³⁰ Aaron told them everything that the Lord had said to Moses, and then Moses performed all the miracles in front of the people. ³¹ They believed, and when they heard that the Lord had come to them and had seen how they were being treated cruelly, they bowed down and worshiped.