Read the Bible

Israel Oppressed in Egypt

¹ These are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob; each came with his family:^(C1)

⁵ The total number of Jacob’s descendants^(F1) was seventy;^(F2)(C1) Joseph was already in Egypt.

⁶ Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation eventually died.^{(C1) 7} But the Israelites were fruitful, increased rapidly, multiplied, and became extremely numerous^(C1) so that the land was filled with them.

⁸ A new king, who did not know about Joseph, came to power in Egypt. ⁹ He said to his people, “Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and powerful than we are.^{(C1) 10} Come, let’s deal shrewdly with them; otherwise they will multiply further, and when war breaks out, they will join our enemies, fight against us, and leave the country.”^{(C1) 11} So the Egyptians assigned taskmasters over the Israelites to oppress them with forced labor.^(C1) They built Pithom and Rameses as supply cities^(C2) for Pharaoh. ¹² But the more they oppressed them, the more they multiplied and spread so that the Egyptians came to dread^(F1) the Israelites. ¹³ They worked the Israelites ruthlessly^{(C1) 14} and made their lives bitter with difficult labor in brick and mortar and in all kinds of fieldwork. They ruthlessly imposed all this work on them.^(C1)

¹⁵ The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives—the first whose name was Shiphrah and the second whose name was Puah— ¹⁶ “When you help the Hebrew women give birth, observe them as they deliver. If the child is a son, kill him, but if it’s a daughter, she may live.” ¹⁷ The midwives, however, feared God^(C1) and did not do as the king of Egypt had told them;^(C2) they let the boys live. ¹⁸ So the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, “Why have you done this and let the boys live?”

¹⁹ The midwives said to Pharaoh, “The Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife can get to them.”^(C1)

²⁰ So God was good to the midwives,^(C1) and the people multiplied and became very numerous. ²¹ Since the midwives feared God, he gave them families.^{(C1) 22} Pharaoh then commanded all his people: “You must throw every son born to the Hebrews into the Nile, but let every daughter live.”^(C1)