The Call of Moses

(Exodus 3:1–22)

30 [After] forty years had passed, an angel appeared to [Moses] in [the] flames of a burning bush in the desert near Mount Sinai. 31 [When] Moses saw [it], he marveled at the sight. [As] he approached to look [more closely], [the] voice of [the] Lord came [to him]: 32 ‘I [am] the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.’[fn] Moses trembled with fear [and] did not dare to look.

33 Then the Lord said to him, ‘Take off [your] sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground. 34 I have indeed seen the oppression of My people in Egypt. I have heard their groaning and have come down to deliver them. Now come, I will send you back to Egypt.’[fn]

35 This Moses, whom they had rejected with the words, ‘Who made you ruler and judge?’[fn] [is] the one whom God sent to be [their] ruler and redeemer through [the] angel[fn] who appeared to him in the bush. 36 [He] led them out [and] performed wonders and signs in [the] land of Egypt, at [the] Red Sea, and [for] forty years in the wilderness.

37 This is the [same] Moses who told the Israelites, ‘God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your brothers.’[fn] 38 [He] was in the assembly in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and [with] our fathers. [And] he received living words to pass on to us.[fn]