Dual PanelMoses
1A CERTAIN man, a descendant of Levi, married a Levite woman.
2She conceived and bore a son, and when she saw what a fine child he was, she kept him hidden for three months.
3Unable to conceal him any longer, she got a rush basket for him, made it watertight with pitch and tar, laid him in it, and placed it among the reeds by the bank of the Nile.
4The child's sister stood some distance away to see what would happen to him.
5Pharaoh's daughter came down to bathe in the river, while her ladies-in-waiting walked on the bank. She noticed the basket among the reeds and sent her slave-girl to bring it.
6When she opened it, there was the baby; it was crying, and she was moved with pity for it. “This must be one of the Hebrew children,” she said.
7At this the sister approached Pharaoh's daughter: “Shall I go and fetch you one of the Hebrew women to act as a wet-nurse for the child?”
8When Pharaoh's daughter told her to do so, she went and called the baby's mother.
9Pharaoh's daughter said to her, “Take the child, nurse him for me, and I shall pay you for it.” She took the child and nursed him at her breast.
10Then, when he was old enough, she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter, who adopted him and called him Moses, “because”, said she, “I drew him out of the water”.
11ONE day after Moses was grown up, he went out to his own kinsmen and observed their labours. When he saw an Egyptian strike one of his fellow-Hebrews,
12he looked this way and that, and, seeing no one about, he struck the Egyptian down and hid his body in the sand.
13Next day when he went out, he came across two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one who was in the wrong, “Why are you striking your fellow-countryman?”
14The man replied, “Who set you up as an official and judge over us? Do you mean to murder me as you murdered the Egyptian?” Moses was alarmed and said to himself, “The affair must have become known.”
15When it came to Pharaoh's ears, he tried to have Moses put to death, but Moses fled from his presence and went and settled in Midian. As Moses sat by a well one day,
16the seven daughters of a priest of Midian came to draw water, and when they had filled the troughs to water their father's sheep,
17some shepherds came and drove them away. But Moses came to the help of the girls and watered the sheep.
18When they returned to Reuel, their father, he said, “How is it that you are back so quickly today?”
19“An Egyptian rescued us from the shepherds,” they answered; “he even drew water for us and watered the sheep.”
20“Then where is he?” their father asked. “Why did you leave him there? Go and invite him to eat with us.”
21So it came about that Moses agreed to stay with the man, and he gave Moses his daughter Zipporah in marriage.
22She bore him a son, and Moses called him Gershom, “because”, he said, “I have become an alien in a foreign land.”
23YEARS passed, during which time the king of Egypt died, but the Israelites still groaned in slavery. They cried out, and their plea for rescue from slavery ascended to God.
24He heard their groaning and called to mind his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob;
25he observed the plight of Israel and took heed of it.