Exodus 1:1-19 ▼

1 And these are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob; each man and his house they came:

2 Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah,

3 Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin,

4 Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher.

5 And all the souls coming out of the loins of Jacob were seventy souls, and Joseph was in Egypt.

6 And Joseph died, and all his brothers, and all that generation.

7 And the sons of Israel were fruitful and they swarmed, and they multiplied, and they grew mighty exceedingly, exceedingly, and the land was filled with them.

8 And there arose a new king over Egypt, who had not known Joseph.

9 And he said to his people, “Behold, the people of the sons of Israel are many and mightier than us.

10 Come, let us act wisely with him, lest he multiply, and it comes to pass when war meets us, that he also may join himself to those hating us and fight against us and go up out of the land.”

11 And they set over him chiefs of forced labor in order to afflict them with their burdens. And they built store cities for Pharaoh, Pithom and Rameses.

12 And as they afflicted him, so he multiplied and so he burst forth. And they were in dread from the face of the sons of Israel.

13 And Egypt made the sons of Israel serve with harshness,

14 and they made bitter their lives with hard labor—with mortar and with bricks and with all manner of labor in the field, all their service in which they made them serve—with harshness.

15 And the king of Egypt spoke to the midwives, the Hebrewesses, of whom the name of the one was Shiphrah, and the name of the second was Puah.

16 And he said, “When you? cause the Hebrewesses to give birth and you? see them on the birthstools, if he is a son, then you? shall kill him; but if she is a daughter, then she shall live.”

17 And the midwives feared God and they did not do as the king of Egypt commanded to them. And the male children they kept alive.

18 And the king of Egypt called for the midwives and said to them, “Why have you? done this thing and kept alive the male children?”

19 And the midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrewesses are not like the Egyptian women, for they are lively; and before the midwife comes to them, they have given birth.”