The Daily Audio Bible

God shows Moses some strange things

4 Then Moses replied, ‘Perhaps the leaders of Israel will not believe me. Perhaps they will not listen to my message. Perhaps they will say, “The Lord did not really appear to you.” ’

² Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘What is that thing in your hand?’ Moses answered, ‘It is a stick.’

³ The Lord said, ‘Throw it down on the ground.’ So Moses threw it on the ground. Then the stick became a snake! Moses ran away from the snake. ⁴ Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Take hold of the snake's tail with your hand.’ So Moses caught the snake with his hand. Then it became a stick in his hand again. ⁵ God said, ‘Do this in front of them. Then they will believe you. They will believe that I, the Lord God, have appeared to you. I am the God that their ancestors worshipped. I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.’

⁶ Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Put your hand inside your robe.’ So Moses did this. When he took his hand out again, the skin had become white, like snow. It was the bad disease called leprosy.

⁷ Then God said, ‘Put your hand back inside your robe again.’ So Moses did that. And when he took his hand out, it was well again, like the rest of his skin!

⁸ God said, ‘The leaders may not believe you. They may not think that the miracle with the stick shows anything. But they may believe you when you do the second miracle. ⁹ But they may still not listen to your message. If they will not even believe those two miracles, do this: Take some water from the River Nile and pour it on the dry ground. The water that you take from the river will become blood on the ground.’^[a]

¹⁰ Then Moses said to the Lord, ‘My Lord, I cannot speak well. I speak slowly and I speak with difficulty. I never could speak well. And even now, when you have spoken to me, I still cannot speak well.’

¹¹ Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Who has made human mouths? Who makes a person that cannot speak? Who makes a person that cannot hear? Who makes a person who can see, or who cannot see? It is I, the Lord God! ¹² Now go! I will help you to speak well. I will teach you what you must say.’

¹³ But Moses said, ‘My Lord, please send some other person. Do not send me!’

¹⁴ Then the Lord became angry with Moses. He said, ‘Aaron, the Levite, is your brother. I know that he can speak very well. Look! He is coming to meet you now. When he sees you, he will be very happy.

¹⁵ So this is what you must do. You must speak to him. You must tell him what to say. I will help both of you to speak. And I will teach both of you what you must do. ¹⁶ Aaron will speak to the people on your behalf. He will be like your mouth, to speak your message. And you will be like God to him. You will tell him what to say. ¹⁷ Take this stick with you and hold it in your hand. You will use it to do the miracles to show that I have sent you.’

Moses returns to Egypt

¹⁸ Then Moses went back to Jethro, his wife's father. Moses said to him, ‘Please let me return to my family in Egypt. I must see if they are still alive.’ So Jethro said to Moses, ‘Go in peace.’^[b]

¹⁹ The Lord had said to Moses while he was still in Midian, ‘Go back to Egypt. All the men who tried to kill you are now dead.’ ²⁰ So Moses put his wife and his sons on a donkey and they started on the journey back to Egypt. And Moses carried the stick of God in his hand.

²¹ Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘When you return to Egypt you must do the signs. Do all the signs that I gave you the power to do. Do them in front of Pharaoh. But I will make Pharaoh angry and cruel. Because of this, he will not let the people go.

²² Then you must speak to Pharaoh. You must say, “The Lord says, Israel is my first son. ²³ I have already said to you, Let my son go so that he can worship me. But if you refuse to let him go, I will kill your first son.” ’

²⁴ On the way to Egypt, there was a place where people could rest on their journey. The Lord met Moses there and he wanted to kill Moses. ²⁵ But Zipporah took a sharp stone and she cut off her son's foreskin with the stone. She touched Moses' feet with the foreskin. She said, ‘You are a husband of blood to me.’ ²⁶ So God did not do anything bad to Moses. Then Zipporah said to Moses, ‘You are a husband of blood, because of this circumcision.’^[c]

²⁷ The Lord said to Aaron, ‘Go into the desert to meet Moses.’ So Aaron went. He met Moses at the mountain of God and he kissed him. ²⁸ Then Moses told Aaron all that the Lord had told him to say. He also told Aaron about all the special signs. God had commanded Moses to show these signs to the Israelites and to Pharaoh.

²⁹ Then Moses and Aaron went to Egypt. They brought together all the leaders of the Israelites. ³⁰ Aaron told them all the things that the Lord had said to Moses. Then Moses did the signs in front of the people. ³¹ And the people believed Aaron and Moses. They had heard that the Lord had come to his people. God had seen their hard life and he was sorry for them. They put their heads down and they worshipped God.

Moses and Aaron speak to Pharaoh

5 After this, Moses and Aaron went to visit Pharaoh. They said to him, ‘Listen to what the Lord says. He is the God of Israel. He says, “Let my people go. Let them prepare a feast in the desert to worship me.” ’

² But Pharaoh said, ‘The Lord is not my god. I do not need to obey him. I do not have to let the Israelites go. I do not know the Lord. I will not let the Israelites go.’

³ Moses and Aaron said, ‘The God of the Israelites has met us. Please let us go. We must go on a journey of three days into the desert. There we must give gifts to the Lord our God. If we do not do this, God may punish us. We may become very ill, or people may attack us in war.’

⁴ But the king of Egypt said, ‘Moses and Aaron, you must not take the people away from their work! Go back to your jobs!’ ⁵ Pharaoh said, ‘Look, there are now many of your people who live in my country. But you are taking them away from their work.’

⁶ On that day, Pharaoh gave a command to the masters of the slaves, and to the leaders of the work. ⁷ This was the command: ‘Do not give the people any more straw to make bricks. Now they must go and find their own straw. ⁸ But they must still make the same number of bricks as they did before. Do not let them make fewer bricks. These people are lazy. That is why they are complaining. They say, “We want to go and offer sacrifices to our God.” ⁹ Make the work more difficult for them to do. They will have to do very hard work. They will be too busy to listen to the lies of their leaders.’^[d]

¹⁰ So the slaves' masters and the leaders of the work went to the Israelite people. They said to them, ‘Pharaoh says, “Now I will not give you straw. ¹¹ You must try to find straw for yourselves. But you will still have to make the same number of bricks.” ’

¹² So the people went everywhere in the land of Egypt, to get straw from the fields. ¹³ The slaves' masters made the Israelites work quickly. They said, ‘Finish all your work for each day, as much as when we gave straw to you.’ ¹⁴ Pharaoh's slave masters hit the Israelite leaders who had authority over the people. They said to them, ‘Why have you not made the complete number of bricks today, as you did before?’

¹⁵ Then the Israelite leaders of the work went to Pharaoh. They asked him, ‘Please sir, why do you do these things to us, your servants? ¹⁶ Our masters no longer give us any straw. But they say “Make bricks!” Then they hit us. But it is your people who are doing wrong things, not us.’

¹⁷ But Pharaoh said, ‘You Israelites are just lazy people! That is why you say, “Let us go to offer sacrifices to the Lord.” ¹⁸ Now go back and do your work. Nobody will give you any straw. But you must make the complete number of bricks.’

¹⁹ The Israelite work leaders heard Pharaoh say, ‘You must still make the same number of bricks as you made before.’ Then they knew that they were in trouble. ²⁰ When they left Pharaoh, they met Moses and Aaron. Moses and Aaron were waiting for them to return from Pharaoh. ²¹ The work leaders said to Moses and Aaron, ‘We hope that the Lord will punish you! You have made us like a bad smell to Pharaoh and to his officers. You have given them a reason to kill us.’

Who is important in God's kingdom?

18 Soon after this, the disciples came to Jesus and they asked him, ‘Who is the most important person in the kingdom of heaven?’

² Jesus called a child to come to him. He made the child stand in the middle of them all. ³ He said, ‘I tell you this: You must change and become like little children. If not, you will never come into the kingdom of heaven. ⁴ This little child does not think that he is very important. You must also think as he does. Whoever does this will be the most important person in the kingdom of heaven. ⁵ If anyone accepts a child like this because of me, that person also accepts me.’

⁶ Jesus said, ‘A person who believes in me may not seem important. But you should never make that person do wrong things.^[a] Do not do that! It would be better for you if someone tied a big stone round your neck. Then you would sink deep down into the sea and die. ⁷ Some things in this world will cause people to do wrong things. You can be sure that bad things will happen. But it will be very bad for the person who makes these things happen.

⁸ If your hand or your foot causes you to do wrong things, you should cut it off. You should throw it away. It is better to have only one hand or one foot and to have God's true life. It will be much worse to keep both your hands and both your feet and still do wrong things. Then God will throw you into hell, where the fire always burns. ⁹ If your eye causes you to do wrong things, then you should take it out. You should throw it away. It is better to have only one of your eyes and to have God's true life. It will be much worse if you keep both your eyes but then God throws you into hell. There the fire always burns.

¹⁰ Be careful! Do not think that any of these little people are not important. I tell you this. They have angels who watch over them. Those angels are always standing in front of my Father in heaven.^[b]

¹¹ [I, the Son of Man, came to look for those who are far away from God.]^[c]

¹² Think about a man who has 100 sheep. He discovers that one of his sheep is not there with the others. What does he do? He leaves all his other sheep on the hills. He goes to look for the one lost sheep. ¹³ And I tell you this: If he finds that lost sheep, he will be very happy. All the other sheep are safe together. But they do not make him as happy as this one sheep does. ¹⁴ God, your Father in heaven, is like that shepherd. He does not want any of these little people to be lost, not even one of them.’^[d]

A friend does wrong things against you

¹⁵ Jesus said, ‘If your Christian friend has done something wrong against you, you must go and speak to him. When you are alone with him, tell him what he has done that is wrong. He may agree with what you say. If he does, then you can call him your friend again.

¹⁶ But maybe he does not want to listen to you. Then take one or two other people with you to speak to him. They will then know what wrong things your friend has done. Remember what the Bible says: “There must be two or three people to say certainly that another person has done something wrong. Two or three people must agree what has happened.” ¹⁷ If your friend still will not agree that he has done something wrong, then go and tell the church leaders.^[e] If he does not agree with the leaders, stop being his friend. He is like somebody who refuses to obey God.^[f]

¹⁸ I tell you this: You will tell people here on earth what is right for them to do. And you will tell them what is not right for them to do. God in heaven will give you this authority. He will agree with what you say.

¹⁹ Two people may agree together to ask God for something. If they agree like that, then my Father in heaven will give them what they ask for.^{[g] 20} Two or more people may meet together because they believe in me. If they do that, I will be there with them.’

Be faithful to your wife

¹⁵ You should enjoy your own wife, as you enjoy clean water to drink.

¹⁶ You would not pour your good water onto the streets. So do not waste your love on other women. ¹⁷ Keep it for you and your wife. Do not share it with other women.

¹⁸ Enjoy sex with your own wife. May the wife that you married when you were young continue to give you joy. ¹⁹ May she be as pretty and beautiful as a young deer. May her breasts always make you happy. May she love you in a way that gives you joy.

²⁰ So my son, do not let an adulteress deceive you. Do not enjoy the body of another man's wife.

²¹ The Lord sees everything that a person does. He knows every path that you go along.