Joseph said to the people, “Since I have bought you and your land today for Pharaoh, here is seed for you. Cultivate the land.

After these things Joseph was told, “Your father is weakening.” So he took his two sons Manasseh and Ephraim with him.

Joseph positioned them; he put Ephraim on his right hand across from Israel’s left hand, and Manasseh on his left hand across from Israel’s right hand. Then Joseph brought them closer to his father.

When he sees a good resting place, and the pleasant land, he will bend his shoulder to the burden and become a slave laborer.

because of the God of your father, who will help you, because of the sovereign God, who will bless you with blessings from the sky above, blessings from the deep that lies below, and blessings of the breasts and womb.

So now, don’t be afraid. I will provide for you and your little children.” Then he consoled them and spoke kindly to them.

So they put foremen over the Israelites to oppress them with hard labor. As a result they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh.

God heard their groaning, God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob,

The Lord said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt. I have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows.

Then Moses took his wife and sons and put them on a donkey and headed back to the land of Egypt, and Moses took the staff of God in his hand.

Moses told Aaron all the words of the Lord who had sent him and all the signs that he had commanded him.

For by now I could have stretched out my hand and struck you and your people with plague, and you would have been destroyed from the earth.

Those of Pharaoh’s servants who feared the word of the Lord hurried to bring their servants and livestock into the houses,

but those who did not take the word of the Lord seriously left their servants and their cattle in the field.

So Moses and Aaron were brought back to Pharaoh, and he said to them, “Go, serve the Lord your God. Exactly who is going with you?”

He said to them, “The Lord will need to be with you if I release you and your dependents! Watch out! Trouble is right in front of you!

So all the Israelites did exactly as the Lord commanded Moses and Aaron.

The water returned and covered the chariots and the horsemen and all the army of Pharaoh that was coming after the Israelites into the sea – not so much as one of them survived!

and her two sons, one of whom was named Gershom (for Moses had said, “I have been a foreigner in a foreign land”),

When they have a dispute, it comes to me and I decide between a man and his neighbor, and I make known the decrees of God and his laws.”