|
1.
These are the names of the sons of Israel who went to Egypt with Jacob, each with his family:
|
|
2.
Reuben, Simeon, Levi and Judah;
|
|
3.
Issachar, Zebulun and Benjamin;
|
|
4.
Dan and Naphtali; Gad and Asher.
|
|
5.
The descendants of Jacob numbered seventy in all; Joseph was already in Egypt.
|
|
6.
Now Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation died,
|
|
7.
but the Israelites were fruitful and multiplied greatly and became exceedingly numerous, so that the land was filled with them.
|
|
8.
Then a new king, who did not know about Joseph, came to power in Egypt.
|
|
9.
"Look," he said to his people, "the Israelites have become much too numerous for us.
|
|
10.
Come, we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country."
|
|
11.
So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh.
|
|
12.
But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread; so the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites
|
|
13.
and worked them ruthlessly.
|
|
14.
They made their lives bitter with hard labor in brick and mortar and with all kinds of work in the fields; in all their hard labor the Egyptians used them ruthlessly.
|
|
15.
The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah,
|
|
16.
"When you help the Hebrew women in childbirth and observe them on the delivery stool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her live."
|
|
17.
The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live.
|
|
18.
Then the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, "Why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?"
|
|
19.
The midwives answered Pharaoh, "Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive."
|
|
20.
So God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous.
|
|
21.
And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own.
|
|
22.
Then Pharaoh gave this order to all his people: "Every boy that is born you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live."
|