| | 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." | |
