ExodusChapter 1

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¹These are the names of the sons of Israel who went to Egypt with Jacob. Each one went with his family. ²They were Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah, ³Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin, ⁴Dan and Naphtali, and Gad and Asher. ⁵In all, there were 70 people in Jacob's family. This count includes Joseph, who was already in Egypt. ⁶Then Joseph died. All his brothers and all the people of that time died too. ⁷But the Israelites had many children. Their numbers grew fast. They became so many that they filled the land. ⁸Then a new king came to power in Egypt. He did not know about Joseph. ⁹He said to his people, "Look! The Israelites are too many for us. They are too strong. ¹⁰Come, we must be clever in how we treat them. If not, they will grow even more. If a war starts, they might join our enemies. They might fight against us and leave the country." ¹¹So the Egyptians put slave bosses over the Israelites. The bosses made their lives hard with forced work. The Israelites built Pithom and Rameses for Pharaoh. These were cities for storing supplies. ¹²But the harder the Egyptians treated them, the more the Israelites grew and spread. So the Egyptians began to fear the Israelites. ¹³They made the Israelites work without mercy. ¹⁴They made their lives bitter with hard work. They made them work with bricks and clay. They made them do all kinds of work in the fields. All the work they forced on them was cruel. ¹⁵The king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives. Their names were Shiphrah and Puah.a ¹⁶He said, "When you help the Hebrew women give birth, watch them on the birthing stools. If the baby is a boy, kill him. But if it is a girl, let her live." ¹⁷But the midwives feared God. They did not do what the king of Egypt told them. They let the boys live. ¹⁸So the king of Egypt called for the midwives. He asked them, "Why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?" ¹⁹The midwives answered Pharaoh, "The Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women. They are strong. They give birth before a midwife gets there." ²⁰So God was good to the midwives. And the people grew and became even more. ²¹Because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own. ²²Then Pharaoh gave an order to all his people. "Every boy born to the Hebrews must be thrown into the Nile River. But you may let every girl live."