¹⁸ When they returned to their father Reuel,^[a](A) he asked, “Why have you come back so quickly today?”

Moses and the Burning Bush

3 Meanwhile, Moses was shepherding the flock of his father-in-law Jethro,^[a] the priest of Midian. He led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb,^[b] the mountain of God.^(A)

Moses’s Return to Egypt

¹⁸ Then Moses went back to his father-in-law, Jethro, and said to him, “Please let me return to my relatives in Egypt and see if they are still living.”

Jethro said to Moses, “Go in peace.”

Jethro’s Visit

18 Moses’s father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian,^(A) heard about everything that God had done for Moses and for God’s people Israel when the Lord brought Israel out of Egypt.

² Now Jethro, Moses’s father-in-law, had taken in Zipporah,^(B) Moses’s wife, after he had sent her back, ³ along with her two sons, one of whom was named Gershom^[a] (because Moses had said, “I have been a resident alien in a foreign land”)^{(C) 4} and the other Eliezer (because he had said, “The God of my father was my helper and rescued me from Pharaoh’s sword”).^[b]

⁵ Moses’s father-in-law, Jethro, along with Moses’s wife and sons, came to him in the wilderness where he was camped at the mountain of God.^{(D) 6} He sent word to Moses, “I, your father-in-law Jethro, am coming to you with your wife and her two sons.”

⁷ So Moses went out to meet his father-in-law, bowed down,^(E) and then kissed him. They asked each other how they had been^[c] and went into the tent. ⁸ Moses recounted to his father-in-law all that the Lord had done to Pharaoh and the Egyptians for Israel’s sake, all the hardships that confronted them on the way, and how the Lord rescued them.^(F)

⁹ Jethro rejoiced over all the good things the Lord had done for Israel when he rescued them from the power of the Egyptians. ¹⁰ “Blessed be the Lord,”^(G) Jethro exclaimed, “who rescued you from the power of Egypt and from the power of Pharaoh. He has rescued the people from under the power of Egypt! ¹¹ Now I know that the Lord is greater than all gods, because he did wonders when the Egyptians acted arrogantly against Israel.”^[d](H)

¹² Then Jethro, Moses’s father-in-law, brought a burnt offering and sacrifices to God, and Aaron came with all the elders of Israel to eat a meal with Moses’s father-in-law in God’s presence.

²⁹ Moses said to Hobab, descendant of Reuel^(A) the Midianite and Moses’s relative by marriage, “We’re setting out for the place the Lord promised, ‘I will give it to you.’^(B) Come with us, and we will treat you well, for the Lord has promised good things to Israel.”^(C)