And now one of the descendants of Levi wooed and married a woman of his own clan,

who conceived and bore him a son. So winning were the child’s looks, that for three months she kept him hidden away;

then, unable to conceal him any longer, she took a little basket of reeds, which she smeared with clay and pitch, and in this put her baby son down among the bulrushes on the river bank.

The boy’s sister waited at a distance, to see what would happen.

Just then, Pharao’s daughter came down to bathe in the river, while her maid-servants walked along the bank. She caught sight of the basket among the rushes, and sent one of her attendants to fetch it;

and when she opened it, and saw the baby crying, her heart was touched. Why, she said, this must be one of the Hebrew children.

And at that, the boy’s sister asked, Wouldst thou have me go and fetch one of the Hebrew women, to nurse the child for thee?

Go by all means, she said; and the girl went and fetched her mother.

Take this boy, Pharao’s daughter said, and nurse him for me; I will reward thee for it. So the woman took the boy and nursed him till he was grown; then she handed him over to Pharao’s daughter,

who adopted him as her own son, and gave him the name of Moses, the Rescuer; I had to rescue him, she said, from the river.

A time came when Moses, now a grown-up man, went out among his brethren the Hebrews, and saw how ill they were treated, saw one of these brethren of his being beaten by an Egyptian;

whereupon, after looking this way and that to see that no one was near, he killed the Egyptian and buried him there in the sand.

When he went out next day, he found two Hebrews that had come to blows, and asked the aggressor what he meant by offering violence to a friend.

Why, said he, who made thee a ruler and a judge over us? Hast thou a mind to kill me, as thou didst kill that Egyptian yesterday? And Moses was terrified to find that his action had so strangely come to light.

When Pharao heard of it, he was for putting Moses to death; and Moses, to avoid his scrutiny, took refuge in the country of Madian. Here he sat down to rest by the side of a well.

And it chanced that seven maids, daughters to the priest of Madian, came out and began drawing water, to fill the troughs and water their father’s sheep.

But now came shepherds, and would have turned the maidens away, until Moses stood up for them, and himself watered their sheep.

When they reached home their father, Raguel, asked them why they were earlier than their wont;✻

and they told him, There was an Egyptian there, who took our part against the shepherds, and then drew water for us himself, for our sheep to drink.

Upon which he asked, What has become of this man? Why did you part from his company? Bid him come in and eat.

So it came about that Moses bound himself by an oath to live there with Raguel, and wedded his daughter Sephora.

The first son she bore him he called Gersam, as if he would say, I have been a stranger, Ger, in an alien land. And when she bore another son, Moses called him Eliezer, Help from God; the God of my father (said he) has helped me to escape from the power of Pharao.✻

Then, after a long while, the king of Egypt died, and the cry of the Israelites, still groaning aloud in their drudgery, went up to God, who took pity on this drudgery of theirs,

and listened to their complaint; he had not forgotten the covenant which he made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

So it was that the Lord looked down in mercy on the Israelites, and took heed of them.