The Birth of Moses

2 Now a man of the tribe of Levi^(A) married a Levite woman,^{(B) 2} and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. When she saw that he was a fine^(C) child, she hid him for three months.^{(D) 3} But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus^(E) basket^[a] for him and coated it with tar and pitch.^(F) Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds^(G) along the bank of the Nile. ⁴ His sister^(H) stood at a distance to see what would happen to him.

⁵ Then Pharaoh’s daughter went down to the Nile to bathe, and her attendants were walking along the riverbank.^(I) She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her female slave to get it. ⁶ She opened it and saw the baby. He was crying, and she felt sorry for him. “This is one of the Hebrew babies,” she said.

⁷ Then his sister asked Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?”

⁸ “Yes, go,” she answered. So the girl went and got the baby’s mother. ⁹ Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this baby and nurse him for me, and I will pay you.” So the woman took the baby and nursed him. ¹⁰ When the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh’s daughter and he became her son. She named^(J) him Moses,^[b] saying, “I drew^(K) him out of the water.”

¹² And having been warned^(A) in a dream^(B) not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.

The Escape to Egypt

¹³ When they had gone, an angel^(C) of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream.^(D) “Get up,” he said, “take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.”^(E)

¹⁴ So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, ¹⁵ where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled^(F) what the Lord had said through the prophet: “Out of Egypt I called my son.”^[a](G)

¹⁶ When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. ¹⁷ Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:^(H)

The Return to Nazareth

¹⁹ After Herod died, an angel^(K) of the Lord appeared in a dream^(L) to Joseph in Egypt ²⁰ and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who were trying to take the child’s life are dead.”^(M)

²¹ So he got up, took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel.