Exodus Devotionals
One for each chapter. Want to test what you read? Take the Exodus quizzes.
- Exodus 1: Fearing God More Than Kings
Exodus opens with a promise coming true under pressure. Jacob's family arrived in Egypt as seventy people, and now they fill the land (1:5-7), just as God told Jacob he would make…
- Exodus 2: Rescue Belongs to God
A mother hides her baby for three months, then sets him in a basket among the reeds of the Nile (2:2-3), the very river Pharaoh had chosen as the grave for Hebrew sons. Pharaoh's…
- Exodus 3: The God Who Comes Down
Moses is tending sheep on the far side of the wilderness when he sees a bush on fire that does not burn up (3:2). From the flames God calls him by name, tells him to take off his…
- Exodus 4: Sent with What We Lack
Moses keeps finding reasons not to go. The people may not believe him, so God gives him signs: a staff that becomes a snake, a hand made leprous and then restored, and Nile water…
- Exodus 5: When Obedience Makes It Worse
Moses and Aaron finally stand before Pharaoh with God's message, and nothing goes as hoped. Pharaoh asks who the LORD is that he should obey him, and says flatly that he does not…
- Exodus 6: Promises for a Broken Spirit
God answers Moses' complaint by telling him again who he is. Five times in this chapter he says that he is the LORD (6:2, 6, 7, 8, 29). He has heard Israel groaning and has…
- Exodus 7: A Heart That Will Not Listen
The contest with Pharaoh begins. Aaron's staff becomes a serpent and swallows the staffs of Egypt's magicians (7:12). Then the Nile, the river where Pharaoh had ordered Israel's…
- Exodus 8: Relief Is Not Repentance
Frogs cover Egypt, even its beds and ovens (8:3). Pharaoh begs Moses to pray and promises to let the people go. Moses prays, God answers, and the frogs die in heaps. But as soon…
- Exodus 9: Mercy Inside the Warning
The plagues grow heavier. Egypt's livestock die while not one animal belonging to Israel is lost (9:6). Boils break out on people and animals (9:10). Then God announces a…
- Exodus 10: No Terms for Surrender
God puts a question to Pharaoh in this chapter: how long will he refuse to humble himself (10:3)? But Pharaoh keeps negotiating. First only the men may go (10:11). Then locusts…
- Exodus 11: When Patience Runs Its Course
After nine plagues, God tells Moses that one more is coming, and this time Pharaoh will drive Israel out (11:1). About midnight the LORD will go through Egypt, and every firstborn…
- Exodus 12: Sheltered by a Lamb
On the night of the Passover, each Israelite household kills a year-old male lamb without blemish and puts its blood on the doorframe (12:5-7). At midnight the LORD strikes down…
- Exodus 13: Led the Longer Way
Freedom comes with instructions for remembering. God claims every firstborn in Israel as his own, and firstborn sons are to be redeemed, bought back, as a lasting reminder that…
- Exodus 14: Saved While Standing Still
Israel is trapped, with the sea in front and Pharaoh's chariots behind. The people are terrified, and they turn on Moses, accusing him of bringing them out to die in the…
- Exodus 15: The Same God at Marah
Fresh from the sea, Moses and Israel sing, and their song is all about God. He has drowned Pharaoh's army, he is their strength and their salvation, no god compares with his…
- Exodus 16: Enough for Each Day
A month out of Egypt, the people remember sitting by pots of meat and accuse Moses of bringing them into the desert to starve (16:3). God answers with bread. Every morning thin…
- Exodus 17: Among Us After All
At Rephidim there is no water, and the people quarrel with Moses until he tells the LORD they are close to stoning him (17:4). Underneath their complaint lies a deeper question:…
- Exodus 18: A Story Worth Telling
Jethro, Moses' father-in-law and a priest of Midian, comes to the mountain of God with Moses' wife and sons. Moses tells him everything the LORD had done to Pharaoh, all the…
- Exodus 19: Brought Near to a Holy God
Israel camps before Sinai, and God speaks before giving any law. He reminds them of what they saw him do to Egypt, and that he lifted them up like an eagle and brought them to…
- Exodus 20: Rescued Before Commanded
Before God gives a single commandment, he says who he is and what he has done. He is the LORD their God, who brought them out of Egypt and out of slavery (20:2). The Ten…
- Exodus 21: Justice That Sets Limits
The first laws after the Ten Commandments begin with servants. A Hebrew servant goes free in the seventh year without paying anything (21:2). A young woman sold into service may…
- Exodus 22: He Hears When They Cry
Exodus 22 deals with ordinary wrongs: stolen oxen, straying livestock, fires that spread into a neighbor's grain. A thief repays more than he took (22:1, 4), and anyone whose…
- Exodus 23: Kindness in a Slower Pace
The justice in Exodus 23 cannot be bought or pushed. No false report, no siding with the crowd, no bribe, and no tilting a case either toward the poor or against them (23:1-3,…
- Exodus 24: Welcomed After the Blood
Moses reads God's words to the people, and twice they answer together that they will do everything the LORD has said (24:3, 7). He builds an altar with twelve pillars, and he…
- Exodus 25: God Chooses to Live Near
Once the covenant is sealed, God's first instructions to Moses are not more laws but plans for a house. He asks for an offering from everyone whose heart moves them to give, so…
- Exodus 26: The Way Through the Veil
Exodus 26 reads like a builder's plan: ten linen curtains with cherubim worked into them, fifty loops and fifty gold clasps joining them into one, layers of goat hair and skins…
- Exodus 27: An Altar at the Entrance
Anyone approaching God's dwelling would first meet a courtyard of linen curtains with a single embroidered gate on the east (27:9-18), and inside it a large bronze altar with a…
- Exodus 28: Names Carried Before God
Exodus 28 describes garments made to give Aaron glory and splendor (28:2), and through them one purpose keeps surfacing. Two onyx stones engraved with the names of Israel's sons…
- Exodus 29: Every Morning and Evening
Before Aaron and his sons can serve as priests, they must be ordained over seven days (29:35). They are washed, clothed, and anointed (29:4-9). They lay their hands on a bull and…
- Exodus 30: The Same Ransom for Everyone
Exodus 30 gathers several pieces of the tabernacle: a gold altar where incense burns morning and evening, a bronze basin where the priests wash before serving, and a holy…
- Exodus 31: The Spirit in Skilled Hands
Having described every part of his dwelling, God now names the people who will make it. He has called Bezalel by name and filled him with his Spirit, giving him skill, ability,…
- Exodus 32: When Moses Offered Himself
While God is giving Moses plans for his dwelling, the people below decide Moses is gone. They demand gods to lead them, Aaron melts their gold earrings into a calf, and they hail…
- Exodus 33: Nothing Without His Presence
The golden calf leaves a hard question hanging: will God still go with them? They may go on to the land of milk and honey with an angel, but God himself will not go, or he might…
- Exodus 34: The Name He Proclaims
Moses climbs Sinai again with two new stone tablets he has cut himself, replacing the ones he broke (34:1-4). The LORD descends in the cloud and proclaims his own name. He is full…
- Exodus 35: Gifts from Stirred Hearts
Moses gathers the whole community, repeats the Sabbath command, and invites everyone whose heart is willing to bring an offering for the tabernacle (35:1-5). The people leave and…
- Exodus 36: When Giving Had to Stop
The craftsmen take the offerings and begin work, but the gifts keep arriving, morning after morning (36:3). At last the workers leave what they are doing to tell Moses that the…
- Exodus 37: Copies of Something Greater
Chapter 37 can feel like a repeat of chapter 25. Bezalel makes the ark of acacia wood covered in gold, the mercy seat with two cherubim facing each other, the table, the lampstand…
- Exodus 38: Every Gift Counted
Bezalel builds the bronze altar and then the bronze basin, made from the mirrors of the women who served at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting (38:8). Then the chapter takes…
- Exodus 39: Work That Ends in Blessing
The priestly garments described in chapter 28 are now made: the ephod, the breastpiece with its twelve engraved stones, the blue robe with bells and pomegranates, and the gold…
- Exodus 40: Glory That Leads the Way
At the start of the second year, Moses sets up the tabernacle (40:17). He raises the frames, spreads the tent, places the ark behind the veil, and arranges the table, lampstand,…