July 18, 2013, Reading

Exodus 3:11-20

11 Moses said to God, ‘Who am I to go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?’

12 ‘I shall be with you,’ God said, ‘and this is the sign by which you will know that I was the one who sent you. After you have led the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain.’

13 Moses then said to God, ‘Look, if I go to the Israelites and say to them, “The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,” and they say to me, “What is his name?” what am I to tell them?’

14 God said to Moses, ‘I am he who is.’ And he said, ‘This is what you are to say to the Israelites, “I am has sent me to you.” ‘

15 God further said to Moses, ‘You are to tell the Israelites, “Yahweh, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.” This is my name for all time, and thus I am to be invoked for all generations to come.

16 ‘Go, gather the elders of Israel together and tell them, “Yahweh, the God of your ancestors, has appeared to me — the God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob — and has indeed visited you and seen what is being done to you in Egypt,

17 and has said: I shall bring you out of the misery of Egypt to the country of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, to a country flowing with milk and honey.”

18 They will listen to your words, and you and the elders of Israel are to go to the king ofEgypt and say to him, “Yahweh, the God of the Hebrews, has encountered us. So now please allow us to make a three-days’ journey into the desert and sacrifice to Yahweh our God.”

19 I am well aware that the king of Egypt will not let you go unless he is compelled by a mighty hand;

20 he will not let you go until I have stretched out my arm and struck Egypt with all the wonders I intend to work there.