The Israelites (also known as Hebrews) lived in Egypt for many years, but a new pharaoh that didn’t know Joseph enslaved them. The pharaoh didn’t want the Hebrew people to become too great so he declared that every baby boy should be killed. One Hebrew woman hid her son for three months. When she could no longer hide him, she put him in a basket and put the basket in the river. The pharaoh’s daughter found the basket and had compassion on him. She raised the boy as her son and called him Moses. 

One day when Moses was grown, he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew slave. Moses grew angry and killed the Egyptian. Moses knew he would be punished so he ran away to the land of Midian. There he met the family of Jethro and they took care of him. Moses went to the mountain as he was tending Jethro’s sheep. The Lord appeared to him as a burning bush and told him to take off his shoes because it was a holy place. Moses learned from the Lord that he was a son of God and that he would help the Lord deliver his people from the Egyptians. Moses was hesitant. He didn’t think he could speak well enough to convince the people to follow him. The Lord promised to help him. He gave Moses power to perform miracles to convince the people to follow him. The Lord also called Aaron, Moses’s brother, to speak for him. Moses and Aaron went to the pharaoh and asked him to let the people go.