1. Meanwhile Moses was tending the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian. Leading the flock beyond the wilderness, he came to the mountain of God, Horeb.
2. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him as fire flaming out of a bush. When he looked, although the bush was on fire, it was not being consumed.
3. So Moses decided, “I must turn aside to look at this remarkable sight. Why does the bush not burn up?”
4. When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to look, God called out to him from the bush: Moses! Moses! He answered, “Here I am.”
5. God said: Do not come near! Remove your sandals from your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground.
6. I am the God of your father, he continued, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.
7. But the Lord said: I have witnessed the affliction of my people in Egypt and have heard their cry against their taskmasters, so I know well what they are suffering.
8. Therefore I have come down to rescue them from the power of the Egyptians and lead them up from that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey, the country of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Girgashites, the Hivites and the Jebusites.
9. Now indeed the outcry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen how the Egyptians are oppressing them.
10. Now, go! I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.