The Birth and Adoption of Moses

¹Now a man of the house of Levi married a Levite woman,

²and she conceived and gave birth to a son. When she saw that he was a beautiful child, she hid him for three months.

³But when she could no longer hide him, she got him a papyrus basketand coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in the basket and set it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile.

⁴And his sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him.

⁵Soon the daughter of Pharaoh went down to bathe in the Nile, and her attendants were walking along the riverbank. And when she saw the basket among the reeds, she sent her maidservant to retrieve it.

⁶When she opened it, she saw the child, and behold, the little boy was crying. So she had compassion on him and said, “This is one of the Hebrew children.”

⁷Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and call one of the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?”

⁸“Go ahead,” Pharaoh’s daughter told her. And the girl went and called the boy’s mother.

⁹Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child and nurse him for me, and I will pay your wages.” So the woman took the boy and nursed him.

¹⁰When the child had grown older, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. She named him Mosesand explained, “I drew him out of the water.”

The Rejection and Flight of Moses

¹¹One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to his own peopleand observed their hard labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people.

¹²After looking this way and that and seeing no one, he struck down the Egyptian and hid his body in the sand.

¹³The next day Moses went out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, “Why are you attacking your companion?”

¹⁴But the man replied, “Who made you ruler and judge over us?Are you planning to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?”Then Moses was afraid and thought, “This thing I have done has surely become known.”

¹⁵When Pharaoh heard about this matter, he sought to kill Moses. But Moses fled from Pharaoh and settled in the land of Midian, where he sat down beside a well.

¹⁶Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came to draw water and fill the troughs to water their father’s flock.

¹⁷And when some shepherds came along and drove them away, Moses rose up to help them and watered their flock.

¹⁸When the daughters returned to their father Reuel,he asked them, “Why have you returned so early today?”

¹⁹“An Egyptian rescued us from the shepherds,” they replied. “He even drew water for us and watered the flock.”

²⁰“So where is he?” their father asked. “Why did you leave the man behind? Invite him to have something to eat.”

²¹Moses agreed to stay with the man, and he gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses in marriage.

²²And she gave birth to a son, and Moses named him Gershom,saying, “I have become a foreigner in a foreign land.”

God Hears the Cry of the Israelites

²³After a long time, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned and cried out under their burden of slavery, and their cry for deliverance from bondage ascended to God.

²⁴So God heard their groaning, and He remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

²⁵God saw the Israelites and took notice.

Seeking Vashti’s Successor

¹Some time later, when the anger of King Xerxes had subsided, he remembered Vashti and what she had done, and what had been decreed against her.

²Then the king’s attendants proposed, “Let a search be made for beautiful young virgins for the king,

³and let the king appoint commissioners in each province of his kingdom to assemble all the beautiful young women into the harem at the citadel of Susa. Let them be placed under the care of Hegai, the king’s eunuch in charge of the women, and let them be given beauty treatments.

⁴Then let the young woman who pleases the king become queen in place of Vashti.”This suggestion pleased the king, and he acted accordingly.

Esther Finds Favor

⁵Now there was at the citadel of Susa a Jewish man from the tribe of Benjamin named Mordecai son of Jair, the son of Shimei, the son of Kish.

⁶He had been carried into exile from Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon among those taken captive with Jeconiahking of Judah.

⁷And Mordecai had brought up Hadassah (that is, Esther), the daughter of his uncle, because she did not have a father or mother. The young woman was lovely in form and appearance, and when her father and mother had died, Mordecai had taken her as his own daughter.

⁸When the king’s command and edict had been proclaimed, many young women gathered at the citadel of Susa under the care of Hegai. Esther was also taken to the palace and placed under the care of Hegai, the custodian of the women.

⁹And the young woman pleased him and obtained his favor, so he quickly provided her with beauty treatments and the special diet. He assigned to her seven select maidservants from the palace and transferred her with them to the best place in the harem.

¹⁰Esther did not reveal her people or her lineage, because Mordecai had instructed her not to do so.

¹¹And every day Mordecai would walk back and forth in front of the court of the harem to learn about Esther’s welfare and what was happening to her.

¹²In the twelve months before her turn to go to King Xerxes, the harem regulation required each young woman to receive beauty treatments with oil of myrrh for six months, and then with perfumes and cosmetics for another six months.

¹³When the young woman would go to the king, she was given whatever she requested to take with her from the harem to the king’s palace.

¹⁴She would go there in the evening, and in the morning she would return to a second haremunder the care of Shaashgaz, the king’s eunuch in charge of the concubines. She would not return to the king unless he delighted in her and summoned her by name.

¹⁵Now Esther was the daughter of Abihail, the uncle from whom Mordecai had adopted her as his own daughter. And when it was her turn to go to the king, she did not ask for anything except what Hegai, the king’s trusted official in charge of the harem, had advised. And Esther found favor in the eyes of everyone who saw her.

¹⁶She was taken to King Xerxes in the royal palace in the tenth month, the month of Tebeth,in the seventh year of his reign.

Esther Becomes Queen

¹⁷And the king loved Esther more than all the other women, and she found grace and favor in his sight more than all of the other virgins. So he placed the royal crown upon her head and made her queen in place of Vashti.

¹⁸Then the king held a great banquet, Esther’s banquet, for all his officials and servants. He proclaimed a tax holiday in the provinces and gave gifts worthy of the king’s bounty.

¹⁹When the virgins were assembled a second time, Mordecai was sitting at the king’s gate.

²⁰Esther still had not revealed her lineage or her people, just as Mordecai had instructed. She obeyed Mordecai’s command, as she had done under his care.

Mordecai Uncovers a Conspiracy

²¹In those days, while Mordecai was sitting at the king’s gate, Bigthanand Teresh, two of the king’s eunuchs who guarded the entrance, grew angry and conspired to assassinate King Xerxes.

²²When Mordecai learned of the plot, he reported it to Queen Esther, and she informed the king on Mordecai’s behalf.

²³After the report had been investigated and verified, both officials were hanged on the gallows. And all this was recorded in the Book of the Chroniclesin the presence of the king.

The Yoke of Nebuchadnezzar

¹At the beginning of the reign of Zedekiahson of Josiah king of Judah, this word came to Jeremiah from the LORD.

²This is what the LORD said to me:“Make for yourself a yoke out of leather straps and put it on your neck.

³Send word to the kings of Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre, and Sidon through the envoys who have come to Jerusalem to Zedekiah king of Judah.

⁴Give them a message from the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, to relay to their masters:

⁵By My great power and outstretched arm, I made the earth and the men and beasts on the face of it, and I give it to whom I please.

⁶So now I have placed all these lands under the authority of My servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. I have even made the beasts of the field subject to him.

⁷All nations will serve him and his son and grandson, until the time of his own land comes; then many nations and great kings will enslave him.

⁸As for the nation or kingdom that does not serve Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and does not place its neck under his yoke, I will punish that nation by sword and famine and plague, declares the LORD, until I have destroyed it by his hand.

⁹But as for you, do not listen to your prophets, your diviners, your interpreters of dreams, your mediums, or your sorcerers who declare, ‘You will not serve the king of Babylon.’

¹⁰For they prophesy to you a lie that will serve to remove you from your land; I will banish you and you will perish.

¹¹But the nation that will put its neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon and serve him, I will leave in its own land, to cultivate it and reside in it, declares the LORD.”

¹²And to Zedekiah king of Judah I spoke the same message: “Put your necks under the yoke of the king of Babylon; serve him and his people, and live!

¹³Why should you and your people die by sword and famine and plague, as the LORD has decreed against any nation that does not serve the king of Babylon?

¹⁴Do not listen to the words of the prophets who say, ‘You must not serve the king of Babylon,’ for they are prophesying to you a lie.

¹⁵For I have not sent them, declares the LORD, and yet they are prophesying falsely in My name; therefore I will banish you, and you will perish—you and the prophets who prophesy to you.”

¹⁶Then I said to the priests and to all this people, “This is what the LORD says: Do not listen to the words of your prophets who prophesy to you, saying, ‘Look, very soon now the articles from the house of the LORD will be brought back from Babylon.’ They are prophesying to you a lie.

¹⁷Do not listen to them. Serve the king of Babylon and live! Why should this city become a ruin?

¹⁸If they are indeed prophets and the word of the LORD is with them, let them now plead with the LORD of Hosts that the articles remaining in the house of the LORD, in the palace of the king of Judah, and in Jerusalem, not be taken to Babylon.

¹⁹For this is what the LORD of Hosts says about the pillars, the sea, the bases, and the rest of the articles that remain in this city,

²⁰which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon did not take when he carried Jeconiahson of Jehoiakim king of Judah into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon, along with all the nobles of Judah and Jerusalem.

²¹Yes, this is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says about the articles that remain in the house of the LORD, in the palace of the king of Judah, and in Jerusalem:

²²‘They will be carried to Babylon and will remain there until the day I attend to them again,’ declares the LORD. ‘Then I will bring them back and restore them to this place.’”

Do Not Harden Your Hearts

¹Come, let us sing for joy to the LORD;let us shout to the Rock of our salvation!

²Let us enter His presence with thanksgiving;let us make a joyful noise to Him in song.

³For the LORD is a great God,a great King above all gods.

⁴In His hand are the depths of the earth,and the mountain peaks belong to Him.

⁵The sea is His, for He made it,and His hands formed the dry land.

⁶O come, let us worship and bow down;let us kneel before the LORD our Maker.

⁷For He is our God,and we are the people of His pasture,the sheep under His care.Today, if you hear His voice,

⁸do not harden your heartsas you did at Meribah,in the day at Massah in the wilderness,

⁹where your fathers tested and tried Me,though they had seen My work.

¹⁰For forty years I was angry with that generation,and I said, “They are a people whose hearts go astray,and they have not known My ways.”

¹¹So I swore on oath in My anger,“They shall never enter My rest.”