Chapter 2

1 A man of the tribe of Levi went and took a wife from the same tribe.

2 And the woman conceived and bore a son, and when she saw that he was very handsome, she hid him for three months;

3 but not being able to hide it any longer, she took a basket of reeds, and tarred it with asphalt and pitch, and put the child in it, and set it in the reeds by the bank of the river,

4 And his sister began to observe afar off what would become of him.

5 And Pharaoh's daughter went out into the river to wash, and her maids walked along the bank of the river. She saw a basket among the reeds, and sent her maidservant to take it.

6 She opened it, and saw the child; and behold, the child is crying [in the basket]; And she had compassion on him [Pharaoh's daughter] and said, "This is one of the Hebrew children."

7 And his sister said to Pharaoh's daughter, 'Shall I not go down and call to thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may nurse thee a child?'

8 Pharaoh's daughter said to her, 'Go.' The damsel went and called the mother of the child.

9 Pharaoh's daughter said to her, 'Take this child and nurse him for me; I'll give you a fee. The woman took the baby and fed him.

10 And the child grew up, and she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter, and he was with her in the place of her son, and she called his name Moses, because, she said, I took him out of the water.

11 And after a long time, when Moses was grown up, it came to pass that he went out to his brethren, and saw their hard labors; And he saw that the Egyptian was smiting one of his brethren [the children of Israel].

12 And when he had looked hither and thither, and saw that there was no one, he slew the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand.

13 And he went out the next day, and behold, two Jews were quarrelling; And he said to the offender, Why do you strike your neighbor?