Daily Bible Reading
Day 47
Today's reading: Exodus 1-3
Look for the promises in God’s word. As you read and find them, write them in your journal along with the scripture reference.
Exodus 1
Blessing during Bondage in Egypt
1. These are the names of the sons of Israel who entered Egypt – each man with his household entered with Jacob:
2. Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah,
3. Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin,
4. Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher.
5. All the people who were directly descended from Jacob numbered seventy. But Joseph was already in Egypt,
6. and in time Joseph and his brothers and all that generation died.
7. The Israelites, however, were fruitful, increased greatly, multiplied, and became extremely strong, so that the land was filled with them.
8. Then a new king, who did not know about Joseph, came to power over Egypt.
9. He said to his people, “Look at the Israelite people, more numerous and stronger than we are!
10. Come, let’s deal wisely with them. Otherwise they will continue to multiply, and if a war breaks out, they will ally themselves with our enemies and fight against us and leave the country.”
11. So they put foremen over the Israelites to oppress them with hard labor. As a result they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh.
12. But the more the Egyptians oppressed them, the more they multiplied and spread. As a result the Egyptians loathed the Israelites,
13. and they made the Israelites serve rigorously.
14. They made their lives bitter by hard service with mortar and bricks and by all kinds of service in the fields. Every kind of service the Israelites were required to give was rigorous.
15. The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah,
16. “When you assist the Hebrew women in childbirth, observe at the delivery: If it is a son, kill him, but if it is a daughter, she may live.”
17. But the midwives feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them; they let the boys live.
18. Then the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this and let the boys live?”
19. The midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women – for the Hebrew women are vigorous; they give birth before the midwife gets to them!”
20. So God treated the midwives well, and the people multiplied and became very strong.
21. And because the midwives feared God, he made households for them.
22. Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, “All sons that are born you must throw into the river, but all daughters you may let live.”
Exodus 2
The Birth of the Deliverer
1. A man from the household of Levi married a woman who was a descendant of Levi.
2. The woman became pregnant and gave birth to a son. When she saw that he was a healthy child, she hid him for three months.
3. But when she was no longer able to hide him, she took a papyrus basket for him and sealed it with bitumen and pitch. She put the child in it and set it among the reeds along the edge of the Nile.
4. His sister stationed herself at a distance to find out what would happen to him.
5. Then the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself by the Nile, while her attendants were walking alongside the river, and she saw the basket among the reeds. She sent one of her attendants, took it,
6. opened it, and saw the child – a boy, crying! – and she felt compassion for him and said, “This is one of the Hebrews’ children.”
7. Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and get a nursing woman for you from the Hebrews, so that she may nurse the child for you?”
8. Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Yes, do so.” So the young girl went and got the child’s mother.
9. Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child and nurse him for me, and I will pay your wages.” So the woman took the child and nursed him.
10. When the child grew older she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. She named him Moses, saying, “Because I drew him from the water.”
The Presumption of the Deliverer
11. In those days, when Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and observed their hard labor, and he saw an Egyptian man attacking a Hebrew man, one of his own people.
12. He looked this way and that and saw that no one was there, and then he attacked the Egyptian and concealed the body in the sand.
13. When he went out the next day, there were two Hebrew men fighting. So he said to the one who was in the wrong, “Why are you attacking your fellow Hebrew?”
14. The man replied, “Who made you a ruler and a judge over us? Are you planning to kill me like you killed that Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid, thinking, “Surely what I did has become known.”
15. When Pharaoh heard about this event, he sought to kill Moses. So Moses fled from Pharaoh and settled in the land of Midian, and he settled by a certain well.
16. Now a priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came and began to draw water and fill the troughs in order to water their father’s flock.
17. When some shepherds came and drove them away, Moses came up and defended them and then watered their flock.
18. So when they came home to their father Reuel, he asked, “Why have you come home so early today?”
19. They said, “An Egyptian man rescued us from the shepherds, and he actually drew water for us and watered the flock!”
20. He said to his daughters, “So where is he? Why in the world did you leave the man? Call him, so that he may eat a meal with us.”
21. Moses agreed to stay with the man, and he gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses in marriage.
22. When she bore a son, Moses named him Gershom, for he said, “I have become a resident foreigner in a foreign land.”
The Call of the Deliverer
23. During that long period of time the king of Egypt died, and the Israelites groaned because of the slave labor. They cried out, and their desperate cry because of their slave labor went up to God.
24. God heard their groaning, God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob,
25. God saw the Israelites, and God understood….
Exodus 3
1. Now Moses was shepherding the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the desert and came to the mountain of God, to Horeb.
2. The angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire from within a bush. He looked – and the bush was ablaze with fire, but it was not being consumed!
3. So Moses thought, “I will turn aside to see this amazing sight. Why does the bush not burn up?”
4. When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to look, God called to him from within the bush and said, “Moses, Moses!” And Moses said, “Here I am.”
5. God said, “Do not approach any closer! Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.”
6. He added, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Then Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.
7. The Lord said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt. I have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows.
8. I have come down to deliver them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up from that land to a land that is both good and spacious, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the region of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.
9. And now indeed the cry of the Israelites has come to me, and I have also seen how severely the Egyptians oppress them.
10. So now go, and I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.”
11. Moses said to God, “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh, or that I should bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”
12. He replied, “Surely I will be with you, and this will be the sign to you that I have sent you: When you bring the people out of Egypt, you and they will serve God on this mountain.”
13. Moses said to God, “If I go to the Israelites and tell them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ – what should I say to them?”
14. God said to Moses, “I am that I am.” And he said, “You must say this to the Israelites, ‘I am has sent me to you.’”
15. God also said to Moses, “You must say this to the Israelites, ‘The Lord – the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob – has sent me to you. This is my name forever, and this is my memorial from generation to generation.’
16. “Go and bring together the elders of Israel and tell them, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers, appeared to me – the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – saying, “I have attended carefully to you and to what has been done to you in Egypt,
17. and I have promised that I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt to the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, to a land flowing with milk and honey.”’
18. “The elders will listen to you, and then you and the elders of Israel must go to the king of Egypt and tell him, ‘The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us. So now, let us go three days’ journey into the wilderness, so that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God.’
19. But I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go, not even under force.
20. So I will extend my hand and strike Egypt with all my wonders that I will do among them, and after that he will release you.
21. “I will grant this people favor with the Egyptians, so that when you depart you will not leave empty-handed.
22. Every woman will ask her neighbor and the one who happens to be staying in her house for items of silver and gold and for clothing. You will put these articles on your sons and daughters – thus you will plunder Egypt!”