and he burned fragrant incense on it, just as the Lord had commanded Moses.

Moses and Aaron and his sons would wash their hands and their feet from it.

When Pharaoh heard ¹  about this event, ²  he sought to kill Moses. So Moses fled ³  from Pharaoh and settled in the land of Midian, ⁴  and he settled ⁵  by a certain well. ⁶ 

So the people contended ¹  with Moses, and they said, “Give us water to drink!” ²  Moses said to them, “Why do you contend ³  with me? Why do you test ⁴  the Lord?”

Then Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, brought ¹  a burnt offering and sacrifices for God, ²  and Aaron and all the elders of Israel came to eat food ³  with the father-in-law of Moses before God.

The Lord said to Moses, “I am going to come ¹  to you in a dense cloud, ²  so that the people may hear when I speak with you and so that they will always believe in you.” ³  And Moses told the words of the people to the Lord.

¹ Now when Moses came down ²  from Mount Sinai with ³  the two tablets of the testimony in his hand ⁴  – when he came down ⁵  from the mountain, Moses ⁶  did not know that the skin of his face shone ⁷  while he talked with him.

When the child grew older ¹  she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. ²  She named him Moses, saying, “Because I drew him from the water.” ³ 

¹ In those days, ²  when ³  Moses had grown up, he went out to his people ⁴  and observed ⁵  their hard labor, and he saw an Egyptian man attacking ⁶  a Hebrew man, one of his own people. ⁷ 

So Moses thought, ¹  “I will turn aside to see ²  this amazing ³  sight. Why does the bush not burn up?” ⁴ 

He added, “I am the God of your father, ¹  the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Then Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look ²  at God.

Moses said ¹  to God, ²  “Who am I, that I should go ³  to Pharaoh, or that I should bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”

God said to Moses, “I am that I am.” ¹  And he said, “You must say this ²  to the Israelites, ‘I am has sent me to you.’”

¹ Moses answered again, ²  “And if ³  they do not believe me or pay attention to me, ⁴  but say, ‘The Lord has not appeared to you’?”

But the Lord said to Moses, “Put out your hand and grab it by the tail” – so he put out his hand and caught it, and it became a staff in his hand ¹  –

The Lord said to Moses in Midian, “Go back ¹  to Egypt, because all the men who were seeking your life are dead.” ² 

The Lord said ¹  to Aaron, “Go to the wilderness to meet Moses. So he went and met him at the mountain of God ²  and greeted him with a kiss. ³ 

Moses told Aaron all the words of the Lord who had ¹  sent him and all the signs that he had commanded him.

Aaron spoke ¹  all the words that the Lord had spoken to Moses and did the signs in the sight of the people,

¹ Afterward Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said, “Thus says the Lord, ²  the God of Israel, ‘Release ³  my people so that they may hold a pilgrim feast ⁴  to me in the desert.’”