The king said, “You will continue to help the Hebrew [2] women give birth to their children. If a girl baby is born, then let the baby live. But if the baby is a boy, then you must kill him!”
So Pharaoh [5] gave this command to his own people: “Let all the girl babies live. But every time a {Hebrew} boy baby is born, you must throw him into the Nile River.”
So they said to Moses and Aaron, “You really made a mistake when you told Pharaoh to let us go. May the Lord punish you because you caused Pharaoh and his rulers to hate us. You have given them an excuse to kill us.”
I will lead you into a desert \{like I did before\}. But this will be a place where other nations live. We will stand face to face and I will judge you.
I led them with ropes. {\cf2\super [119]} \par But they were ropes of love.\par I was like a person who set them free. {\cf2\super [120]} \par I bent down and fed them.\par
{So Hobab agreed,} and they began traveling from the mountain of the Lord. The priests took the Box of the Lord’s Agreement [155] and walked in front of the people. They carried the Holy Box for three days, looking for a place to camp.
When you were traveling, he went before you to find a place for you to put your camp. He went before you in a fire by night and in a cloud by day to show you which way you should go.
Remember that the Lord your God has blessed you in everything you have done. He knows about your walking through this great desert. The Lord your God has been with you these 40 years. You have always had everything you needed.’
In the desert, the Lord fed you manna [53] —something your ancestors [54] had never seen. The Lord tested you. Why? Because the Lord made you humble so that things would go well for you in the end.