The Daily Audio Bible

The Israelites fight the Amalekites

⁸ At Rephidim, the Amalekites came and they fought against the Israelites. ⁹ Moses said to Joshua, ‘Choose some of our men. Then go out with them and fight against the Amalekites. Tomorrow I will stand on the top of the hill, and I will hold God's stick in my hand.’

¹⁰ So Joshua fought against the Amalekites. He did what Moses had told him to do. Moses, Aaron and Hur went up to the top of the hill. ¹¹ When Moses lifted up his hands, the Israelites were winning in the fight. But when Moses brought his hands down, the Amalekites were winning. ¹² Moses' hands became very tired. So Aaron and Hur put a big stone under Moses for him to sit on. Then Aaron and Hur held up Moses' hands. Aaron stood on one side of Moses, and Hur stood on the other side. They held his hands up, until sunset. ¹³ As a result, Joshua and his men destroyed the Amalekite army in the fight.

¹⁴ Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Write down what happened here in a book. Then people will remember it. Read it aloud for Joshua to hear. Say that I will completely destroy all the Amalekites. Nobody in the whole world will remember them any more.’

¹⁵ Then Moses used big stones to build an altar. He called it ‘The Lord is my flag in war’.^{[a] 16} Moses said, ‘Take hold of the Lord's flag! The Lord will always continue to fight against the Amalekites.’

Jethro visits Moses

18 The father of Moses' wife was called Jethro. He was the priest for the Midian people. He heard about all the things that God had done for Moses and for the Israelites. He also heard how the Lord had brought Israel out of Egypt.

² Moses had sent his wife, Zipporah, back to her home. He also sent his two sons with her. Jethro took care of them. ³ Moses' older son was called Gershom.^[b] Moses said about him, ‘I have become a stranger in a foreign country.’ ⁴ The other son was called Eliezer.^[c] Moses said about him, ‘My ancestors' God gave me help. He saved me from Pharaoh, when Pharaoh wanted to kill me.’

⁵ Jethro came to visit Moses in the wilderness. He brought with him Moses' wife and two sons. The Israelites had put up their tents near the mountain of God. ⁶ Jethro had already sent a message to Moses. He said, ‘I am coming with your wife and her two sons to see you.’

⁷ So Moses went out to meet his wife's father. He bent down and he kissed Jethro. They said ‘hello’ and they spoke together. Then they went into Moses' tent. ⁸ Moses told Jethro about all the things that the Lord had done to help the Israelites. He told him what the Lord had done against Pharaoh and against the Egyptians. He told Jethro about the troubles that had happened to the Israelites during their journey. And Moses told him how the Lord had saved his people.

⁹ When Jethro heard what Moses said, he was very happy. He realized that the Lord had saved the Israelites from the power of the Egyptians.

¹⁰ Jethro said, ‘Praise the Lord! He has saved you from the power of the Egyptians and their king, Pharaoh. Yes! He has saved the Israelites from the powerful Egyptians. ¹¹ Now I know that the Lord is greater than all other gods. He destroyed the proud Egyptians when they were cruel to his people.’

¹² Then Jethro brought an animal to burn as a sacrifice to God. He also brought other sacrifices. Aaron came, with all the leaders of the Israelites. They ate a special meal together with Jethro, to worship God.

Moses chooses some judges

¹³ The next day, Moses sat down to judge people who had quarrels against each other. From morning until evening, people were coming to him with their quarrels.

¹⁴ Jethro saw all these things that Moses did to help the people. So he said, ‘You are trying to do too much! Why do you sit there alone to judge all these people during the whole day?’

¹⁵ Moses answered Jethro, ‘The people come to me to discover what God says. ¹⁶ When they quarrel, they come to me to decide who is right. I tell them what God's laws and commands teach.’

¹⁷ Jethro replied, ‘The thing that you are doing is not good. ¹⁸ You will become too tired. The people who come to you will also become tired. You cannot do all this work alone. ¹⁹ Now listen to me! I will tell you what I think will help you. God will take care of you. When people have quarrels, you must continue to speak to God on their behalf. ²⁰ You are the person who must teach them God's laws and commands. You must show them how they should live and what they must do.

²¹ But you must also choose some other clever men to help you. They must be honest men who respect God. They must not want to take money from people. Choose these men to be officers with authority over groups of the people. They will be leaders of 1,000 people, or 100 people, or 50 people, or 10 people. ²² They will be able to work as judges for the people, every day. They can decide the small quarrels. But if there is a difficult problem, they must bring it to you. That will make your work easier, because they will help you with the work. ²³ If you agree with my idea, and if God commands you to do it, it will help you. The work will not be too hard for you. And all these people will go home happily.’

²⁴ Moses listened to Jethro and he did everything that Jethro had said.

²⁵ Moses chose wise men from all the Israelites. He made them officers to lead 1,000 people, or 100 people, or 50 people, or 10 people. ²⁶ They worked as judges for the people at all times. If there was a difficult problem, they took it to Moses for him to decide. But they themselves decided the small problems.

²⁷ Then Moses said ‘goodbye’ to his wife's father, Jethro. Jethro returned to his own country.

The Israelites arrive at Sinai mountain

19 ^1-2 After the Israelites left Rephidim, they went into the Sinai desert. The Israelites put up their tents in the desert, at the side of Sinai mountain. That happened on the first day of the third month since they came out of Egypt.

³ Moses went up the mountain to speak with God. The Lord spoke to him from the mountain. He said, ‘This is what you must say to the Israelites, Jacob's descendants: ⁴ “You yourselves have seen what I did against the Egyptians. You know how I took care of you. I carried you carefully, like an eagle carries her babies on her wings. I brought you here to come to me. ⁵ Now you must be careful to obey me and my covenant with you. Then you will belong to me as my special people. The whole earth belongs to me, and I have chosen you from among all the nations. ⁶ You will be my priests who serve in my kingdom. You will be a nation that is special to me.” These are the words that you must speak to the Israelites.’

⁷ So Moses came back down from the mountain. He brought together all the leaders of the Israelites. He told them all the words that the Lord had commanded him. ⁸ The people all replied together. They said, ‘We will do everything that the Lord has said.’ Then Moses repeated their answer to the Lord.

⁹ The Lord said to Moses, ‘I will come to you in a thick cloud. Then the people will hear me when I speak to you. Then they will always believe what you say.’ Moses told the Lord the words that the people had said.

¹⁰ Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Go to the people. Make them ready to meet with me. Today and tomorrow they must wash their clothes. ¹¹ They must be ready on the third day. On that day, I will come down on Sinai mountain, so that all the people see me. ¹² Make a line round the edge of the mountain so that the people do not cross it. Say to them, “Be careful! Do not go up the mountain or even touch the edge of it. If any people or animals touch the mountain, they must die. ¹³ Nobody must go near them. You must throw stones at them to kill them. Or you must shoot arrows at them. You must not let them live, whether they are people or animals.” The people must wait until they hear the sound of a trumpet. When they hear a long noise, then they may go up on the mountain.’

¹⁴ Then Moses came down from the mountain to speak to the people. He told them to make themselves ready for God. So the people washed their clothes. ¹⁵ Then Moses said to them, ‘Prepare yourselves for the third day. While you wait, do not have sex with your wives, or anyone.’

Jesus teaches the Pharisees about the most important Law

³⁴ The Pharisees heard that Jesus had said these things to the Sadducees. Now the Sadducees could not say anything more to him. So the Pharisees met together. They decided what they would say to Jesus.

³⁵ One of the Pharisees had studied God's Law very well. He asked Jesus a question to see how he would answer. ³⁶ He said, ‘Teacher, which of God's Laws is the most important rule for us to obey?’

³⁷ Jesus replied to him, ‘You should love the Lord your God completely: Love him with all your mind. Love him with all that you are. Love him in all that you think. ³⁸ This is the greatest rule and the most important of all God's Laws. ³⁹ The second rule is also important, like the first one. You should love other people as much as you love yourself. ⁴⁰ All God's Laws that Moses gave us come from these two rules. All the things that the prophets wrote also come from them.’

Jesus teaches people about the Messiah

⁴¹ While the Pharisees met together with Jesus, he asked them, ⁴² ‘What do you think about the Messiah? Whose son is he?’

The Pharisees replied, ‘He will be King David's son.’

⁴³ Jesus said to them, ‘So think about this: God's Holy Spirit helped King David to call the Messiah his Lord. David said, ⁴⁴ “The Lord said to my Lord:

⁴⁵ We know that King David calls the Messiah his Lord. So can you really say that the Messiah is David's son?’ ⁴⁶ Nobody could answer the question that Jesus asked. After this, everyone was afraid to ask Jesus any more questions.

Jesus talks about dangerous teachers

23 After that, Jesus spoke to the crowds and to his disciples. ² He said, ‘The teachers of God's Law and the Pharisees have authority to explain the Law of Moses. ³ So you must obey everything that they teach you. But you should not do the same things that they do. They tell you what the Law of Moses teaches. But then they themselves do not obey it. ⁴ The rules that they give you are difficult to obey. Their rules are like heavy luggage, which they make you carry. But they themselves will not help you to carry that luggage. They will not agree to use even one finger to help you.^[a]

⁵ The Pharisees do things only so that people will see them. They wear little boxes with words from the Bible in them, but they make them really big. They also make the tassels on their clothes very long.^{[b] 6} They like to sit in the important places at special meals. They also choose to sit in the best seats in the meeting places. ⁷ They like people to praise them in the market place. They want people to call them “Teacher.”

⁸ You all belong to God's family. You have only one Teacher. So nobody should call another person, “Teacher”.^{[c] 9} Also, do not call any other person in the world, “Father”. You have only one Father, and he is in heaven.^{[d] 10} And do not call each other “Leader”. You have only one Leader. He is the Messiah that God has chosen. ¹¹ The person among you who is most important will be your servant. ¹² Some people lift themselves up to be important. But God will bring them down low. Other people are humble. God will lift up those people to a good place.’

²⁷ You cannot carry fire next to your body and not burn your clothes. ²⁸ You cannot walk over hot pieces of coal and not burn your feet. ²⁹ It is the same when a man has sex with another man's wife. Anyone who does that will receive punishment that hurts him.

³⁰ People may excuse someone who steals food because he is hungry.^{[a] 31} But if someone catches him, he must pay back seven times what he took. He may lose everything that he has in his house.

³² But a man who sleeps with another man's wife is stupid. He is destroying his own life. ³³ He deserves his punishment and shame. He will never stop being ashamed.

³⁴ The woman's husband will be jealous, and he will become very angry. He will want the man to receive full punishment. ³⁵ He will not accept any money or bribe to pay the debt, even if it is a lot of money.