One Year Pray for America Bible - Flipbook - Page 114
January 27
have empowered you to do. But I will
harden his heart so he will refuse to let
the people go. 22 Then you will tell him,
‘This is what the Lord says: Israel is
my firstborn son. 23 I commanded you,
“Let my son go, so he can worship
me.” But since you have refused, I will
now kill your firstborn son!’”
24 On the way to Egypt, at a place
where
Moses and his fam
i
ly had
stopped for the night, the Lord confronted him and was about to kill him.
25 But M
oses’ wife, Z
ipporah, took a
flint knife and circumcised her son.
She touched his feet* with the foreskin and said, “Now you are a bridegroom of blood to me.” 26 (When she
said “a bridegroom of blood,” she was
referring to the circumcision.) After
that, the Lord left him alone.
27 Now the Lord had said to Aaron,
“Go out into the wilderness to meet
Moses.” So Aaron went and met Moses
at the mountain of God, and he embraced him. 28 Moses then told Aaron
everything the Lord had commanded
him to say. And he told him about the
miraculous signs the Lord had commanded him to perform.
29 Then Moses and Aaron returned
to Egypt and called all the elders of
Aaron told them
Israel together. 30
everything the Lord had told Moses,
and Moses performed the miraculous
signs as they watched. 31 Then the
people of Israel were convinced that
the Lord had sent M
oses and A
aron.
When they heard that the Lord was
concerned about them and had seen
their misery, they bowed down and
worshiped.
5:1 After
this presentation to Israel’s
leaders, Moses and Aaron went and
spoke to Pha
raoh. They told him,
“This is what the Lord, the God of
Israel, says: Let my people go so they
may hold a festival in my honor in the
wilderness.”
2 “Is that so?” retorted Pha
raoh.
“And who is the Lord? Why should I
listen to him and let Israel go? I don’t
know the Lord, and I will not let Is
rael go.”
104
3 But
Aaron and Moses persisted.
“The God of the Hebrews has met with
us,” they declared. “So let us take a
three-day journey into the wilderness
so we can offer sacrifices to the Lord
our God. If we don’t, he will kill us
with a plague or with the sword.”
4 Pha
r aoh replied, “
M oses and
Aaron, why are you distracting the
people from their tasks? Get back to
work! 5 Look, there are many of your
people in the land, and you are stopping them from their work.”
6 That same day Pha
raoh sent this
order to the Egyptian slave drivers
and the Israelite foremen: 7 “Do not
supply any more straw for making
bricks. Make the people get it themselves! 8 But still require them to make
the same number of bricks as before.
Don’t reduce the quota. They are lazy.
That’s why they are crying out, ‘Let
us go and offer sacrifices to our God.’
9 Load them down with more work.
Make them sweat! That will teach
them to listen to lies!”
10 So the slave drivers and foremen
went out and told the people: “This is
what Pharaoh says: I will not provide
any more straw for you. 11 Go and get it
yourselves. Find it wherever you can.
But you must produce just as many
bricks as before!” 12 So the people scattered throughout the land of Egypt in
search of stubble to use as straw.
13 Meanwhile, the Egyptian slave
drivers continued to push hard. “Meet
your daily quota of bricks, just as
you did when we provided you with
straw!” they demanded. 14 Then they
whipped the Israelite foremen they
had put in charge of the work crews.
“Why
haven’t you met your quotas either yesterday or today?” they
demanded.
15 So the Is
ra
el
ite foremen went
to Pharaoh and pleaded with him.
“Please d
on’t treat your servants like
this,” they begged. 16 “We are given
no straw, but the slave drivers still
demand, ‘Make bricks!’ We are being
beaten, but it i sn’t our fault! Your own
people are to blame!”
17 But Pharaoh shouted, “You’re just
