Exodus 1:1-22
1 And these are the names of Israel’s sons who came into Egypt—came with Jacob, each bringing his family:
2 Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah;
3 Issacar, Zebulun, and Benjamin;
4 Dan and Naphtali; Gad and Asher;
5 and the total of the persons that had come of Jacob’s body was seventy persons. And Joseph was already in Egypt.
6 And Joseph and all his brothers died, and all that generation;
7 and the sons of Israel bred and swarmed and multiplied, and grew very numerous indeed, and the country was full of them.
8 And there arose over Egypt a new king who had not known Joseph;
9 and he said to his people “Here is the people of the sons of Israel greater and more numerous than we:
10 come, let us use shrewd policy with them, for fear they should multiply and when we get into a war they should reinforce our ill-wishers and attack us and get up out of the country.”
11 And he set corvée captains over them to wear them down with the loads they carried; and they built storage cities, Pithom and Raʽamses, for the Pharaoh.
12 But the more they wore them down, the more they multiplied and the more they spread;
13 and the Egyptians conceived a horror of the sons of Israel, and exploited them ruthlessly,
14 and embittered their lives with overwork on brick and mortar and all field work, all their work that they exploited them on.
15 And the king of Egypt said to the midwives who attended the Hebrew women, of whom the name of the first was Shiphrah and the name of the second Puʽah,
16 * “When you are attending the Hebrew women, see while they are on the birthstool: if it is a son have it die, but if it is a daughter let it live”;
17 but the midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt told them, but spared the children’s lives.
18 And the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and said to them “How came you to do such a thing and spare the children’s lives?”
19 and the midwives said to the Pharaoh “Because Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women, because they are so vigorous: before the midwife gets to them they have given birth.”
20 And God was good to the midwives, and the people multiplied and grew very numerous.
21 And because the midwives had feared God he made them heads of families.
22 And the Pharaoh gave all his people the order “Every son that is born, throw it in the Nile, but save the life of every daughter.”
Footnotes
^ 1:16 (while they are on the birthstool) Unc.
