God

Then Moses asked God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is His name?’ What should I tell them?”

God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”

God also told Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘The LORD, 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 forever, and this is how I am to be remembered in every generation.

Go, assemble the elders of Israel and say to them, ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—has appeared to me and said: I have surely attended to you and have seen what has been done to you in Egypt.

And I have promised to bring you up out of your affliction in Egypt, into the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites—a land flowing with milk and honey.’

The elders of Israel will listen to what you say, and you must go with them to the king of Egypt and tell him, ‘The LORD, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us. Now please let us take a three-day journey into the wilderness, so that we may sacrifice to the LORD our God.’

But I know that the king of Egypt will not allow you to go unless a mighty hand compels him.

So I will stretch out My hand and strike the Egyptians with all the wonders I will perform among them. And after that, he will release you.

And I will grant this people such favor in the sight of the Egyptians that when you leave, you will not go away empty-handed.

Then Moses answered, “What if they do not believe me or listen to my voice? For they may say, ‘The LORD has not appeared to you.’”

And the LORD asked him, “What is that in your hand?” “A staff,” he replied.

“Throw it on the ground,” said the LORD. So Moses threw it on the ground, and it became a snake, and he ran from it.

“Stretch out your hand and grab it by the tail,” the LORD said to Moses, who reached out his hand and caught the snake, and it turned back into a staff in his hand.

“This is so that they may believe that the LORD, the God of their fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob—has appeared to you.”

Furthermore, the LORD said to Moses, “Put your hand inside your cloak.” So he put his hand inside his cloak, and when he took it out, his hand was leprous, white as snow.

“Put your hand back inside your cloak,” said the LORD. So Moses put his hand back inside his cloak, and when he took it out, it was restored, like the rest of his skin.

“Please, Lord,” Moses replied, “I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since You have spoken to Your servant, for I am slow of speech and tongue.”

And the LORD said to him, “Who gave man his mouth? Or who makes the mute or the deaf, the sighted or the blind? Is it not I, the LORD?

Now go! I will help you as you speak, and I will teach you what to say.”

But Moses replied, “Please, Lord, send someone else.”

Then the anger of the LORD burned against Moses, and He said, “Is not Aaron the Levite your brother? I know that he can speak well, and he is now on his way to meet you. When he sees you, he will be glad in his heart.

You are to speak to him and put the words in his mouth. I will help both of you to speak, and I will teach you what to do.

He will speak to the people for you. He will be your spokesman, and it will be as if you were God to him.

Now the LORD had said to Moses in Midian, “Go back to Egypt, for all the men who sought to kill you are dead.”

So Moses took his wife and sons, put them on a donkey, and headed back to Egypt. And he took the staff of God in his hand.