Exodus 1

And these are the names of the sons of Israel, the ones who came to Egypt. They came in with Jacob, a man and his house:

Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah,

Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin,

Dan, and Naphtali, Gad, and Asher.

And all the lives going out of the loins of Jacob, were 70 lives. And Joseph was in Egypt. \*

And Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation died.

And the sons of Israel were fruitful and propagated and multiplied and were mighty, with great greatness, and the land was filled with them. \*

And a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.

And he said to his people, “Behold, the people of the sons of Israel are many and mighty compared to us.

Come, let us act wisely toward him, lest he multiplies, and it happens that a battle occurs, and he even adds himself onto the ones hating us, and he fights with us, and he leaves from the land.” \*

And they set over him overseers of labor gangs in order to afflict him by their burdens. And he built Pithom and Rameses, cities of storage for Pharaoh.

And insofar as they afflicted him, thus he multiplied and thus he spread out. And they felt a sickening dread from the face of the sons of Israel. \*

And the Egyptians enslaved the sons of Israel with rigor.

And they embittered their lives by hard slavery, by mortar and by bricks, and by all kinds of slave labor in the fields; all their work with which they worked for them was with rigor. \*

And the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, of whom the name of the one was Shiphrah, and the name of the second was Puah.

And he said, “When you assist the Hebrew women as midwives and you see on the birth stool, if he is a son, then you shall cause him to die, but if she is a daughter, then she shall live.” \*

But the midwives feared God and did not do according to what the king of Egypt spoke to them, and they let the sons live.

And the king of Egypt called out to the midwives, and he said to them, “Why have you done this thing, and let the sons live?”

And the midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women: for they are lively, and, before the midwife comes to them, they have given birth.” \*

And God caused good to the midwives. And the people multiplied and became very mighty.

And it came about, since the midwives feared God, that he made houses for them. \*

And Pharaoh commanded to all of his people, saying, “You shall throw every newborn son into the river, but every daughter you shall let live.” \*