Now listen to me, ¹  I will give you advice, and may God be with you: You be a representative for the people to God, ²  and you bring ³  their disputes ⁴  to God;

And because the midwives feared God, he made ¹  households ²  for them.

Now I know that the Lord is greater than all the gods, for in the thing in which they dealt proudly against them he has destroyed them.” ¹ 

Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God, and they took their place at the foot of the mountain.

The people kept ¹  their distance, but Moses drew near the thick darkness ²  where God was. ³ 

But he did not lay a hand ¹  on the leaders of the Israelites, so they saw God, ²  and they ate and they drank. ³ 

So Moses set out ¹  with ²  Joshua his attendant, and Moses went up the mountain of God.

But ¹  the midwives feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them; they let the boys live. ² 

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?”

Then Moses took ¹  his wife and sons ²  and put them on a donkey and headed back ³  to the land of Egypt, and Moses took the staff of God in his hand.

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 

The angel of God, who was going before the camp of Israel, moved and went behind them, and the pillar ¹  of cloud moved from before them and stood behind them.

Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, together with Moses’ ¹  sons and his wife, came to Moses in the desert where he was camping by ²  the mountain of God. ³ 

When they have a dispute, ¹  it comes to me and I decide ²  between a man and his neighbor, and I make known the decrees of God and his laws.” ³ 

Moses ¹  went up to God, and the Lord called to him from the mountain, “Thus you will tell the house of Jacob, and declare to the people ²  of Israel:

then his master must bring him to the judges, ¹  and he will bring him to the door or the doorposts, and his master will pierce his ear with an awl, and he shall serve him forever. ² 

If the thief is not caught, ¹  then the owner of the house will be brought before the judges ²  to see ³  whether he has laid ⁴  his hand on his neighbor’s goods.

¹ During ²  that long period of time ³  the king of Egypt died, and the Israelites ⁴  groaned because of the slave labor. They cried out, and their desperate cry ⁵  because of their slave labor went up to God.

Now Moses ¹  was shepherding the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the desert ²  and came to the mountain of God, to Horeb. ³