Exodus 17

The Israelites complain again.  This time, there is no water to drink and they complain that they'll die.  Well, Moses asks God because the people are ready to stone him and the Lord tells him to strike a rock with his staff and water will come out.  So, he does it and water is provided for them.  We should pay careful attention to this because there is another water incident that is similar to this one and Moses deals with it a bit differently.

We move on to a story about Amalek coming to fight with Israel.  This is also the first time we hear of Joshua.  Moses asks him to gather men to fight and they do.  Moses, Aaron and Hur go up to a hill top and whenever Moses' hands were held up, Israel was winning the battle.  However, when his hands were not held up, Israel was losing.  Well, Moses' was getting tired, so they put stones for him to rest on while Aaron and Hur held up Moses' hands.  So, the Israelites won the battle.  God also gets Moses to write down that he will blot out the memory of Amalek.  We will read more about them later.