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But God spoke in this way: that his descendants would dwell in a foreign land, and that they would bring them into bondage and oppress them four hundred years.
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'And the nation to whom they will be in bondage I will judge,' said God, 'and after that they shall come out and serve Me in this place.'
8
Then He gave him the covenant of circumcision; and so Abraham begot Isaac and circumcised him on the eighth day; and Isaac begot Jacob, and Jacob begot the twelve patriarchs.
9
"And the patriarchs, becoming envious, sold Joseph into Egypt. But God was with him
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and delivered him out of all his troubles, and gave him favor and wisdom in the presence of Pharaoh, king of Egypt; and he made him governor over Egypt and all his house.
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Now a famine and great trouble came over all the land of Egypt and Canaan, and our fathers found no sustenance.
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But when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent out our fathers first.
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And the second time Joseph was made known to his brothers, and Joseph's family became known to the Pharaoh.
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Then Joseph sent and called his father Jacob and all his relatives to him, seventy-five people.
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So Jacob went down to Egypt; and he died, he and our fathers.
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And they were carried back to Shechem and laid in the tomb that Abraham bought for a sum of money from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem.
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"But when the time of the promise drew near which God had sworn to Abraham, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt
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till another king arose who did not know Joseph.
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This man dealt treacherously with our people, and oppressed our forefathers, making them expose their babies, so that they might not live.
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At this time Moses was born, and was well pleasing to God; and he was brought up in his father's house for three months.
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But when he was set out, Pharaoh's daughter took him away and brought him up as her own son.
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And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and deeds.
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Now when he was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brethren, the children of Israel.
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And seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended and avenged him who was oppressed, and struck down the Egyptian.
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For he supposed that his brethren would have understood that God would deliver them by his hand, but they did not understand.
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And the next day he appeared to two of them as they were fighting, and tried to reconcile them, saying, 'Men, you are brethren; why do you wrong one another?'
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But he who did his neighbor wrong pushed him away, saying, 'Who made you a ruler and a judge over us?
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Do you want to kill me as you did the Egyptian yesterday?'
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Then, at this saying, Moses fled and became a dweller in the land of Midian, where he had two sons.
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And when forty years had passed, an Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire in a bush, in the wilderness of Mount Sinai.
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When Moses saw it, he marveled at the sight; and as he drew near to observe, the voice of the Lord came to him,
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saying, 'I am the God of your fathers--the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.' And Moses trembled and dared not look.
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'Then the Lord said to him, "Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground.
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I have surely seen the oppression of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their groaning and have come down to deliver them. And now come, I will send you to Egypt." '
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This Moses whom they rejected, saying, 'Who made you a ruler and a judge?' is the one God sent to be a ruler and a deliverer by the hand of the Angel who appeared to him in the bush.
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He brought them out, after he had shown wonders and signs in the land of Egypt, and in the Red Sea, and in the wilderness forty years.