One Year Pray for the Persecuted Bible - Flipbook - Page 104
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January 27
13 But Moses again pleaded, “Lord, please!
Send anyone else.”
14 Then the Lord became angry with M
oses.
“All right,” he said. “What about your brother,
Aaron the Levite? I know he speaks well. And
look! He is on his way to meet you now. He will
be delighted to see you. 15 Talk to him, and put
the words in his mouth. I will be with both of
you as you speak, and I will instruct you both
in what to do. 16 Aaron will be your spokesman
to the people. He will be your mouthpiece, and
you will stand in the place of God for him, telling him what to say. 17 And take your shepherd’s staff with you, and use it to perform the
miraculous signs I have shown you.”
18 So M
oses went back home to Jethro, his
father-in-law. “Please let me return to my relatives in Egypt,” Moses said. “I don’t even know
if they are still alive.”
“Go in peace,” Jethro replied.
19 Before M
oses left Midian, the Lord said
to him, “Return to Egypt, for all those who
wanted to kill you have died.”
20 So M
oses took his wife and sons, put them
on a donkey, and headed back to the land of
Egypt. In his hand he carried the staff of God.
21 And the Lord told Moses, “When you arrive back in Egypt, go to Pharaoh and perform
all the miracles I 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 family had stopped for the
night, the Lord confronted him and was about
to kill him. 25 But Moses’ wife, Zipporah, 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 M
oses.” 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 M
oses and Aaron returned to Egypt
and called all the elders of Israel together.
30 Aaron told them everything the Lord had
told M
oses, and M
oses performed the miraculous signs as they watched. 31 Then the
people of Israel were convinced that the Lord
had sent Moses 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,
oses and Aaron went and spoke to Pharaoh.
M
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 Pharaoh. “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 Israel go.”
3 But Aaron and M
oses 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 d
on’t, he will kill us
with a plague or with the sword.”
4 Pharaoh replied, “Moses 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 Pharaoh 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 Israelite 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!”
