“Then Moses came on the scene—a child of divine beauty. His parents hid him from Pharaoh as long as they could to spare his life. After three months they could conceal him no longer, so they had to abandon him to his fate. But God arranged that Pharaoh’s daughter would find him, take him home, and raise him as her own son. So Moses was fully trained in the royal courts and educated in the highest wisdom Egypt had to offer, until he arose as a powerful prince and an eloquent orator.
“When Moses turned forty, his heart was stirred for his people, the Israelites. One day he saw one of our people being violently mistreated, so he came to his rescue, and with his own hands Moses murdered the abusive Egyptian. Moses hoped that when the people realized how he had rescued one of their own, they would recognize him as their deliverer. How wrong he was! The next day he came upon two of our people engaged in a fist fight, and he tried to break it up by saying, ‘Men, you are brothers! Why would you want to hurt each other?’
“But the perpetrator pushed Moses aside and said, ‘Who do you think you are? Who appointed you to be our ruler and judge? Are you going to kill me like you did the Egyptian yesterday?’
“Shaken by this, Moses fled Egypt and lived as an exile in the land of Midian, where he became the father of two sons. After forty years had passed, while he was in the desert near Mount Sinai, the Messenger of YAHWEH appeared to him in the midst of a flaming thorn bush. Moses was astonished and stunned by what he was seeing, so he drew closer to observe this marvel. Then the Lord YAHWEH spoke to him out of the flames:
‘I am the living God, the God of your ancestors.
I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.’
“Trembling in God’s presence and overwhelmed with awe, Moses didn’t even dare to look into the fire.
“Out of the flames the Lord YAHWEH said to him:
‘Take the sandals off your feet,
for you are standing in the realm of holiness.
I have watched and seen how my people
have been mistreated in Egypt.
I have heard their painful groaning,
and now I have come down to set them free.
So come to me, Moses,
for I am sending you to Egypt to represent me.’
“So God sent back to Egypt the man our people rejected and refused to recognize by saying, ‘Who appointed you to be our ruler and judge?’ God sent this man back to be their ruler and deliverer, commissioned with the power of the messenger who appeared to him in the flaming thorn bush. This man brought the people out from their Egyptian bondage with many astonishing wonders and miracle signs—miracles in Egypt, miracles at the Red Sea, and miracles during their forty-year journey through the wilderness. This is the same Moses who said to our ancestors, ‘The Lord God will raise up one from among you who will be a prophet to you, like I have been. Listen to everything he will say!’
“Moses led the congregation in the wilderness and he spoke face-to-face with the angel who spoke with him on the top of Mount Sinai. Along with our ancestors, he received the living oracles of God that were passed down to us. But our forefathers refused to obey. They pushed him away, and their hearts longed to return to Egypt.
“While Moses was on the mountain, our forefathers said to Aaron, ‘Make us gods to lead us, because we don’t know what has become of this Moses who brought us out of Egypt.’
“So they made a god, an idol in the form of a bull calf. They offered sacrifices to it and celebrated with delight what their own hands had made.
“When God saw what they had done, he turned away from them and handed them over to the worship of the stars of heaven, as recorded in the prophetic writings:
‘People of Israel, you failed to worship me
when you offered animal sacrifices
for forty years in the wilderness.
Instead you worshiped the god Moloch,
and you carried his tabernacle, not mine.
You worshiped your star-god, Rephan.
You made idols with your hands
and worshiped them instead of me.
So now I will cast you into exile beyond Babylon.’
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