Add parallel Print Page Options

17 All the congregation of the children of Israel traveled from the wilderness of Sin, starting according to Yahweh’s commandment, and encamped in Rephidim; but there was no water for the people to drink. Therefore the people quarreled with Moses, and said, “Give us water to drink.”

Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test Yahweh?”

The people were thirsty for water there; so the people murmured against Moses, and said, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt, to kill us, our children, and our livestock with thirst?”

Moses cried to Yahweh, saying, “What shall I do with these people? They are almost ready to stone me.”

Yahweh said to Moses, “Walk on before the people, and take the elders of Israel with you, and take the rod in your hand with which you struck the Nile, and go. Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock in Horeb. You shall strike the rock, and water will come out of it, that the people may drink.” Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel. He called the name of the place Massah,[a] and Meribah,[b] because the children of Israel quarreled, and because they tested Yahweh, saying, “Is Yahweh among us, or not?”

Read full chapter

Footnotes

  1. 17:7 Massah means testing.
  2. 17:7 Meribah means quarreling.