Shemot

The sons of Israel multiply in Egypt until a new king arises who did not know Joseph. Fearing them, he sets taskmasters over them and embitters their lives with brick and mortar and field labor — yet the more they are oppressed, the more they increase. The midwives Shiphrah and Puah quietly refuse Pharaoh's order to kill the Hebrew boys at birth, and Pharaoh commands that every newborn son be thrown into the Nile.

A Levite couple hides their infant son three months, then sets him in a pitch-sealed basket among the reeds. Pharaoh's daughter draws him from the water, his watching sister arranges his own mother as nurse, and he grows up in the palace, named Moses. Grown, he goes out to his brothers, kills an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, and flees to Midian, where he defends the daughters of the priest Reuel, marries Zipporah, and shepherds flocks — while in Egypt the people groan, and God remembers the covenant.

At Horeb a bush burns without being consumed. God calls Moses by name, announces the rescue of Israel and their return to a land flowing with milk and honey, and sends him to Pharaoh. Moses resists — Who am I? What is Your name? They will not believe me; I am slow of speech — and is answered with the name "I will be what I will be," with signs (the staff turned serpent, the hand turned leprous), and with Aaron as his spokesman. Moses returns, the elders believe, but Pharaoh scoffs — "Who is the LORD?" — and orders the same brick quota without straw. The foremen are beaten, the people blame Moses, and Moses turns to God, who answers: now you will see what I will do to Pharaoh.