2 One day a man and woman—both from the tribe of Levi—married. ² She became pregnant and gave birth to a son. When she saw that her son was healthy and beautiful, she feared for his safety; so she kept him hidden from view for three whole months.

³ When she could no longer keep him hidden away, she took a basket made of reeds, sealed it with tar and pitch, and placed her baby boy in it. Then she wedged the basket among the reeds along the edge of the Nile River.

⁴ All the while, the child’s sister watched from a distance to see what might happen to her baby brother.

⁵ Later on Pharaoh’s daughter came down to bathe in the river while her young attendants walked along the bank nearby. Pharaoh’s daughter noticed the basket wedged among the reeds and wondered what it might contain. So she instructed her maid to bring it to her. ⁶ When Pharaoh’s daughter opened the basket, she found the baby boy. He was crying, and her heart melted with compassion.

So the baby’s sister went and fetched his mother. The boy’s mother approached Pharaoh’s daughter.

So the woman took the child—who was secretly her own son—and nursed him just as Pharaoh’s daughter had instructed.

¹⁰ The boy grew, and when the time was right, the woman brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and she adopted him as her own. She named him Moses because, as she explained, “I took him out of the water.”

¹¹ Years later, when Moses had grown up, he went out to observe his people—the Hebrews—and he witnessed the heavy burden of labor forced upon them. He also witnessed an Egyptian beating one of his Hebrew brothers. ¹² He looked around to see if anyone was watching but there was no one in sight, so he beat the Egyptian just as the Egyptian had beaten the Hebrew. Moses ended up killing the Egyptian and hid the dead body in the sand.

¹³ He went out again the next day and saw two of his Hebrew brothers fighting with each other. Moses confronted the offender.

Fear immediately gripped Moses.

¹⁵ Moses was right. When the news reached Pharaoh, he sought to have Moses killed. But Moses ran away from Pharaoh until he reached the land of Midian. There he sat down beside a well.

¹⁶ Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters. While Moses was sitting there, resting from his journey, they came to get water from the well in order to fill the troughs with water for their father’s flock. ¹⁷ At that moment, a band of shepherds came and forced the priest’s flocks away from the well; but Moses stood up for the young women, came to their rescue, and even watered their father’s flock for them. ¹⁸ The women returned to their father Reuel (he was also known as Jethro).

²¹ After experiencing Jethro’s hospitality, Moses agreed to come and live with him; and eventually Jethro arranged for one of his daughters, Zipporah, to marry Moses.^{[b] 22} Later Zipporah became pregnant and gave birth to a son; and Moses named the child Gershom because, as he explained, “I have been an outsider in a foreign land.”

²³ Many years later, Egypt’s king died. The Israelites continued to moan because of their bondage, and they cried out to be rescued from their oppression. Their cry for help ascended to God. ²⁴ He heard their pleas and remembered the covenant He made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. ²⁵ God saw the situation the people of Israel were in, and He was moved to take action.