They replied, “The man questioned us ¹  thoroughly ²  about ourselves and our family, saying, ‘Is your father still alive? Do you have another brother?’ ³  So we answered him in this way. ⁴  How could we possibly know ⁵  that he would say, ⁶  ‘Bring your brother down’?”

But as for me, when I was returning from Paddan, Rachel died – to my sorrow ¹  – in the land of Canaan. It happened along the way, some distance from Ephrath. So I buried her there on the way to Ephrath” (that is, Bethlehem). ² 

But when she was no longer able to hide him, she took a papyrus basket ¹  for him and sealed it with bitumen and pitch. She put the child in it and set it among the reeds along the edge of the Nile. ² 

God also said to Moses, “You must say this to the Israelites, ‘The Lord ¹  – the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob – has sent me to you. This is my name ²  forever, and this is my memorial from generation to generation.’ ³ 

¹ So Moses went back ²  to his father-in-law Jethro and said to him, “Let me go, so that I may return ³  to my relatives ⁴  in Egypt and see ⁵  if they are still alive.” Jethro said to Moses, “Go in peace.”

Moses said to him, “When I leave the city ¹  I will spread my hands to the Lord, the thunder will cease, and there will be no more hail, so that you may know that the earth belongs to the Lord. ² 

¹ The Lord said to Moses, “I will bring one more plague on Pharaoh and on Egypt; after that he will release you from this place. When he releases you, ²  he will drive you out completely ³  from this place.

Moses said to the people, “Do not fear! ¹  Stand firm ²  and see ³  the salvation ⁴  of the Lord that he will provide ⁵  for you today; for the Egyptians that you see today you will never, ever see again. ⁶ 

and they received from Moses all the offerings the Israelites had brought to do ¹  the work for the service of the sanctuary, and they still continued to bring him a freewill offering each morning. ² 

Then if ¹  it still appears again in the garment or the warp or the woof, or in any article of leather, it is an outbreak. Whatever has the infection in it you must burn up in the fire.

Anyone who touches the corpse of any dead person and does not purify himself defiles the tabernacle of the Lord. And that person must be cut off from Israel, ¹  because the water of purification was not sprinkled on him. He will be unclean; his uncleanness remains on him.

The donkey said to Balaam, “Am not I your donkey that you have ridden ever since I was yours until this day? Have I ever attempted ¹  to treat you this way?” ²  And he said, “No.”

But the Lord was angry at me because of you and would not listen to me. Instead, he ¹  said to me, “Enough of that! ²  Do not speak to me anymore about this matter.

You must gather all of its plunder into the middle of the plaza ¹  and burn the city and all its plunder as a whole burnt offering to the Lord your God. It will be an abandoned ruin ²  forever – it must never be rebuilt again.

Moreover, he must not accumulate horses for himself or allow the people to return to Egypt to do so, ¹  for the Lord has said you must never again return that way.

This accords with what happened at Horeb in the day of the assembly. You asked the Lord your God: “Please do not make us hear the voice of the Lord our ¹  God any more or see this great fire any more lest we die.”

and then you are careful to observe all these commandments ¹  I am giving ²  you today (namely, to love the Lord your God and to always walk in his ways), then you must add three more cities ³  to these three.

Then the Lord will make you return to Egypt by ship, over a route I said to you that you would never see again. There you will sell yourselves to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.”

He said to them, “Today I am a hundred and twenty years old. I am no longer able to get about, ¹  and the Lord has said to me, ‘You will not cross the Jordan.’

for I know about your rebellion and stubbornness. ¹  Indeed, even while I have been living among you to this very day, you have rebelled against the Lord; you will be even more rebellious after my death! ²