So God treated the midwives well, and the people multiplied and became very strong.

Then Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said, “Go, sacrifice to your God within the land.”

The people kept their distance, but Moses drew near the thick darkness where God was.

So Moses set out with Joshua his attendant, and Moses went up the mountain of God.

and you then take his daughters for your sons, and when his daughters prostitute themselves to their gods, they will make your sons prostitute themselves to their gods as well.

I will take you to myself for a people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God, who brought you out from your enslavement to the Egyptians.

The Lord is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation. This is my God, and I will praise him, my father’s God, and I will exalt him.

and they will know that I am the Lord their God, who brought them out from the land of Egypt, so that I may reside among them. I am the Lord their God.

Then Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, brought a burnt offering and sacrifices for God, and Aaron and all the elders of Israel came to eat food with the father-in-law of Moses before God.

Be careful not to make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, for when they prostitute themselves to their gods and sacrifice to their gods, and someone invites you, you will eat from his sacrifice;

But as for you and your servants, I know that you do not yet fear the Lord God.”

Then Pharaoh quickly summoned Moses and Aaron and said, “I have sinned against the Lord your God and against you!

“I, the Lord, am your God, who brought you from the land of Egypt, from the house of slavery.

Moses said to God, “If I go to the Israelites and tell them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ – what should I say to them?”

When Pharaoh released the people, God did not lead them by the way to the land of the Philistines, although that was nearby, for God said, “Lest the people change their minds and return to Egypt when they experience war.”

Moses said to his father-in-law, “Because the people come to me to inquire of God.

Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like you? – majestic in holiness, fearful in praises, working wonders?

But the midwives feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them; they let the boys live.

Moses said to God, “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh, or that I should bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”

We must go on a three-day journey into the desert and sacrifice to the Lord our God, just as he is telling us.”