Exodus 1

1 These are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob, each with his household:

2 Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah,

3 Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin,

4 Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher.

5 All the people who were directly descended from Jacob were seventy-five, and Joseph was in Egypt already.

6 Joseph died, as did all his brothers, and all that generation.

7 The children of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and grew exceedingly mighty; and the land was filled with them.

8 Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.

9 He said to his people, "Look, the people of the sons of Israel are more and mightier than we.

10 Come, let us deal wisely with them, lest they multiply, and it happen that when any war breaks out, they also join themselves to our enemies, and fight against us, and escape out of the land."

11 Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with their burdens. They built storage cities for Pharaoh: Pithom and Rameses.

12 But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and the more they spread out. And they were in dread of the children of Israel.

13 And the Egyptians ruthlessly made the children of Israel labor,

14 and they made their lives bitter with hard labor, in mortar and in brick, and in all manner of labor in the field, all their labors which they ruthlessly made them do.

15 The king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, of whom the name of the one was Shiphrah, and the name of the other Puah,

16 and he said, "When you perform the duty of a midwife to the Hebrew women, and see them on the birth stool; if it is a son, then you shall kill him; but if it is a daughter, then she shall live."

17 But the midwives feared God, and did not do what the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the baby boys alive.

18 The king of Egypt called for the midwives, and said to them, "Why have you done this thing, and have saved the boys alive?"

19 The midwives said to Pharaoh, "Because the Hebrew women aren't like the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous, and give birth before the midwife comes to them."

20 God dealt well with the midwives, and the people multiplied, and grew very mighty.

21 It happened, because the midwives feared God, that he gave them families.

22 Pharaoh commanded all his people, saying, "You are to cast every son who is born to the Hebrews into the river, but every daughter you are to keep alive."