God Gives Moses Miraculous Power

4 Then Moses answered the Lord, “But suppose the Israelites do not believe me and will not listen to what I say. What shall I do if they say that you did not appear to me?”

² So the Lord asked him, “What are you holding?”

“A walking stick,” he answered.

³ The Lord said, “Throw it on the ground.” When Moses threw it down, it turned into a snake, and he ran away from it. ⁴ Then the Lord said to Moses, “Reach down and pick it up by the tail.” So Moses reached down and caught it, and it became a walking stick again. ⁵ The Lord said, “Do this to prove to the Israelites that the Lord, the God of their ancestors, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, has appeared to you.”

⁶ The Lord spoke to Moses again, “Put your hand inside your robe.” Moses obeyed; and when he took his hand out, it was diseased, covered with white spots, like snow. ⁷ Then the Lord said, “Put your hand inside your robe again.” He did so, and when he took it out this time, it was healthy, just like the rest of his body. ⁸ The Lord said, “If they will not believe you or be convinced by the first miracle, then this one will convince them. ⁹ If in spite of these two miracles they still will not believe you, and if they refuse to listen to what you say, take some water from the Nile and pour it on the ground. The water will turn into blood.”

¹⁰ But Moses said, “No, Lord, don't send me. I have never been a good speaker, and I haven't become one since you began to speak to me. I am a poor speaker, slow and hesitant.”

¹¹ The Lord said to him, “Who gives man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or dumb? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? It is I, the Lord. ¹² Now, go! I will help you to speak, and I will tell you what to say.”

¹³ But Moses answered, “No, Lord, please send someone else.”

¹⁴ At this the Lord became angry with Moses and said, “What about your brother Aaron, the Levite? I know that he can speak well. In fact, he is now coming to meet you and will be glad to see you. ¹⁵ You can speak to him and tell him what to say. I will help both of you to speak, and I will tell you both what to do. ¹⁶ He will be your spokesman and speak to the people for you. Then you will be like God, telling him what to say. ¹⁷ Take this walking stick with you; for with it you will perform miracles.”

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.

Moses and Aaron before the King of Egypt

5 Then Moses and Aaron went to the king of Egypt and said, “The Lord, the God of Israel, says, ‘Let my people go, so that they can hold a festival in the desert to honor me.’”

² “Who is the Lord?” the king demanded. “Why should I listen to him and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord; and I will not let Israel go.”

³ Moses and Aaron replied, “The God of the Hebrews has revealed himself to us. Allow us to travel three days into the desert to offer sacrifices to the Lord our God. If we don't do so, he will kill us with disease or by war.”

⁴ The king said to Moses and Aaron, “What do you mean by making the people neglect their work? Get those slaves back to work! ⁵ You people have become more numerous than the Egyptians. And now you want to stop working!”

⁶ That same day the king commanded the Egyptian slave drivers and the Israelite foremen: ⁷ “Stop giving the people straw for making bricks. Make them go and find it for themselves. ⁸ But still require them to make the same number of bricks as before, not one brick less. They don't have enough work to do, and that is why they keep asking me to let them go and offer sacrifices to their God! ⁹ Make them work harder and keep them busy, so that they won't have time to listen to a pack of lies.”

¹⁰ The slave drivers and the Israelite foremen went out and said to the Israelites, “The king has said that he will not supply you with any more straw. ¹¹ He says that you must go and get it for yourselves wherever you can find it, but you must still make the same number of bricks.” ¹² So the people went all over Egypt looking for straw. ¹³ The slave drivers kept trying to force them to make the same number of bricks every day as they had made when they were given straw. ¹⁴ The Egyptian slave drivers beat the Israelite foremen, whom they had put in charge of the work. They demanded, “Why aren't you people making the same number of bricks that you made before?”

¹⁵ Then the foremen went to the king and complained, “Why do you do this to us, Your Majesty? ¹⁶ We are given no straw, but we are still ordered to make bricks! And now we are being beaten. It is your people that are at fault.”

¹⁷ The king answered, “You are lazy and don't want to work, and that is why you ask me to let you go and offer sacrifices to the Lord. ¹⁸ Now get back to work! You will not be given any straw, but you must still make the same number of bricks.” ¹⁹ The foremen realized that they were in trouble when they were told that they had to make the same number of bricks every day as they had made before.

²⁰ As they were leaving, they met Moses and Aaron, who were waiting for them. ²¹ They said to Moses and Aaron, “The Lord has seen what you have done and will punish you for making the king and his officers hate us. You have given them an excuse to kill us.”

Who Is the Greatest? ^(A)

18 ^(B)At that time the disciples came to Jesus, asking, “Who is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven?”

² So Jesus called a child to come and stand in front of them, ^3 (C)and said, “I assure you that unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the Kingdom of heaven. ⁴ The greatest in the Kingdom of heaven is the one who humbles himself and becomes like this child. ⁵ And whoever welcomes in my name one such child as this, welcomes me.

Temptations to Sin^(D)

⁶ “If anyone should cause one of these little ones to lose his faith in me, it would be better for that person to have a large millstone tied around his neck and be drowned in the deep sea. ⁷ How terrible for the world that there are things that make people lose their faith! Such things will always happen—but how terrible for the one who causes them!

^8 (E)“If your hand or your foot makes you lose your faith, cut it off and throw it away! It is better for you to enter life without a hand or a foot than to keep both hands and both feet and be thrown into the eternal fire. ^9 (F)And if your eye makes you lose your faith, take it out and throw it away! It is better for you to enter life with only one eye than to keep both eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell.

The Parable of the Lost Sheep^(G)

^10 (H)“See that you don't despise any of these little ones. Their angels in heaven, I tell you, are always in the presence of my Father in heaven. ^11 [a]

¹² “What do you think a man does who has one hundred sheep and one of them gets lost? He will leave the other ninety-nine grazing on the hillside and go and look for the lost sheep. ¹³ When he finds it, I tell you, he feels far happier over this one sheep than over the ninety-nine that did not get lost. ¹⁴ In just the same way your^[b] Father in heaven does not want any of these little ones to be lost.

When Someone Sins

^15 (I)“If your brother sins against you,^[c] go to him and show him his fault. But do it privately, just between yourselves. If he listens to you, you have won your brother back. ^16 (J)But if he will not listen to you, take one or two other persons with you, so that ‘every accusation may be upheld by the testimony of two or more witnesses,’ as the scripture says. ¹⁷ And if he will not listen to them, then tell the whole thing to the church. Finally, if he will not listen to the church, treat him as though he were a pagan or a tax collector.

Prohibiting and Permitting

^18 (K)“And so I tell all of you: what you prohibit on earth will be prohibited in heaven, and what you permit on earth will be permitted in heaven.

¹⁹ “And I tell you more: whenever two of you on earth agree about anything you pray for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. ²⁰ For where two or three come together in my name, I am there with them.”

¹⁵ Be faithful to your own wife and give your love to her alone. ¹⁶ Children that you have by other women will do you no good. ¹⁷ Your children should grow up to help you, not strangers. ¹⁸ So be happy with your wife and find your joy with the woman you married— ¹⁹ pretty and graceful as a deer. Let her charms keep you happy; let her surround you with her love. ²⁰ Son, why should you give your love to another woman? Why should you prefer the charms of another man's wife? ²¹ The Lord sees everything you do. Wherever you go, he is watching.