Exodus 1

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

2Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah;

3Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin;

4Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher.

5All the descendants of Jacob numbered seventy persons; Joseph was already in Egypt.

6Then Joseph died, and all his brothers, and that whole generation.

7But the Israelites were fruitful and swarmed; they multiplied and grew extremely strong, so that the land was filled with them.

8Then a new king came to power over Egypt who did not know Joseph.

9He said to his people, “Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and stronger than we are.

10Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, or they will multiply further, and if war breaks out, they too will join our enemies, fight against us, and go up out of the land.”

11So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor. The Israelites built supply cities for Pharaoh: Pithom and Rameses.

12But the more they oppressed them, the more they multiplied and spread, so that the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites.

13The Egyptians made the Israelites serve them ruthlessly.

14They made their lives bitter with hard labor in mortar and bricks and with every kind of work in the fields. In all their work they made them serve ruthlessly.

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

16He said, “When you help the Hebrew women give birth and see them on the birthstool, if it is a son, kill him; but if it is a daughter, she may live.”

17But the midwives feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them; they let the boys live.

18So the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this and let the boys live?”

19The midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women. They are vigorous and give birth before the midwife arrives.”

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

21And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own.

22Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, “Every son that is born you must throw into the Nile, but let every daughter live.”