| |
New International Version |   | |
 |
| |
| | Exd 1:1 | These are the names of the sons of Israel who went to Egypt with Jacob, each with his family:
| |
| | Exd 1:2 | Reuben, Simeon, Levi and Judah;
| |
| | Exd 1:3 | Issachar, Zebulun and Benjamin;
| |
| | Exd 1:4 | Dan and Naphtali; Gad and Asher.
| |
| | Exd 1:5 | The descendants of Jacob numbered seventy in all; Joseph was already in Egypt.
| |
| | Exd 1:6 | Now Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation died,
| |
| | Exd 1:7 | but the Israelites were fruitful and multiplied greatly and became exceedingly numerous, so that the land was filled with them.
| |
| | Exd 1:8 | Then a new king, who did not know about Joseph, came to power in Egypt.
| |
| | Exd 1:9 | "Look," he said to his people, "the Israelites have become much too numerous for us.
| |
| | Exd 1:10 | 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."
| |
| | Exd 1:11 | So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh.
| |
| | Exd 1:12 | But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread; so the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites
| |
| | Exd 1:13 | and worked them ruthlessly.
| |
| | Exd 1:14 | 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.
| |
| | Exd 1:15 | The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah,
| |
| | Exd 1:16 | "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."
| |
| | Exd 1:17 | The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live.
| |
| | Exd 1:18 | Then the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, "Why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?"
| |
| | Exd 1:19 | The midwives answered Pharaoh, "Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive."
| |
| | Exd 1:20 | So God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous.
| |
| | Exd 1:21 | And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own.
| |
| | Exd 1:22 | 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."
| |
