When they sat down to eat their food, they looked up ¹  and saw ²  a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead. Their camels were carrying spices, balm, and myrrh down to Egypt. ³ 

Then Judah said to his daughter-in-law Tamar, “Live as a widow in your father’s house until Shelah my son grows up.” For he thought, ¹  “I don’t want him to die like his brothers.” ²  So Tamar went and lived in her father’s house.

When all the land of Egypt experienced the famine, the people cried out to Pharaoh for food. Pharaoh said to all the people of Egypt, ¹  “Go to Joseph and do whatever he tells you.”

“Then the man, the lord of the land, said to us, ‘This is how I will find out if you are honest men. Leave one of your brothers with me, and take grain ¹  for your hungry households and go.

But Jacob ¹  replied, “My son will not go down there with you, for his brother is dead and he alone is left. ²  If an accident happens to him on the journey you have to make, then you will bring down my gray hair ³  in sorrow to the grave.” ⁴ 

Then Judah said to his father Israel, “Send the boy with me and we will go immediately. ¹  Then we will live ²  and not die – we and you and our little ones.

Then the daughter of Pharaoh ¹  came down to wash herself ²  by the Nile, while her attendants were walking alongside the river, ³  and she saw the basket among the reeds. She sent one of her attendants, ⁴  took it, ⁵ 

“Go and bring together ¹  the elders of Israel and tell them, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers, ²  appeared ³  to me – the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – saying, “I have attended carefully ⁴  to you and to what has been done ⁵  to you in Egypt,

“The elders ¹  will listen ²  to you, and then you and the elders of Israel must go to the king of Egypt and tell him, ‘The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, has met ³  with us. So now, let us go ⁴  three days’ journey into the wilderness, so that we may sacrifice ⁵  to the Lord our God.’

The Lord said ¹  to Moses, “When you go back to Egypt, ²  see that you ³  do before Pharaoh all the wonders I have put under your control. ⁴  But I will harden ⁵  his heart ⁶  and ⁷  he will not let the people go.

And they said, “The God of the Hebrews has met with us. Let us go a three-day journey ¹  into the desert so that we may sacrifice ²  to the Lord our God, so that he does not strike us with plague or the sword.” ³ 

But you must require ¹  of them the same quota of bricks that they were making before. ²  Do not reduce it, for they are slackers. ³  That is why they are crying, ‘Let us go sacrifice to our God.’

When Moses extended ¹  his staff toward the sky, the Lord ²  sent thunder ³  and hail, and fire fell to the earth; ⁴  so the Lord caused hail to rain down on the land of Egypt.

Our livestock must ¹  also go with us! Not a hoof is to be left behind! For we must take ²  these animals ³  to serve the Lord our God. Until we arrive there, we do not know what we must use to serve the Lord.” ⁴ 

Pharaoh ¹  summoned Moses and Aaron in the night and said, “Get up, get out ²  from among my people, both you and the Israelites! Go, serve the Lord as you have requested! ³ 

Moses stretched out his hand toward the sea, and the Lord drove the sea apart ¹  by a strong east wind all that night, and he made the sea into dry land, and the water was divided.

For the horses of Pharaoh came with his chariots and his footmen into the sea, and the Lord brought back the waters of the sea on them, but the Israelites walked on dry land in the middle of the sea.”

Then the Lord said to Moses, “I am going to rain ¹  bread from heaven for you, and the people will go out ²  and gather the amount for each day, so that I may test them. ³  Will they will walk in my law ⁴  or not?

The Lord said to Moses, “Go over before the people; ¹  take with you some of the elders of Israel and take in your hand your staff with which you struck the Nile and go.

The Lord said to him, “Go, get down, and come up, and Aaron with you, but do not let the priests and the people force their way through to come up to the Lord, lest he break through against them.”