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¹ And these [are] the names of the sons of Israel who are coming into Egypt; each man and his household have come with Jacob:² Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah,³ Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin,⁴ Dan, and Naphtali, Gad, and Asher.⁵ And all the persons coming out of the thigh of Jacob are seventy persons; as for Joseph, he was in Egypt.⁶ And Joseph dies, and all his brothers, and all that generation;⁷ and the sons of Israel have been fruitful, and they teem, and multiply, and are very, very mighty, and the land is filled with them.

⁸ And there rises a new king over Egypt, who has not known Joseph,⁹ and he says to his people, "Behold, the people of the sons of Israel [are] more numerous and mighty than we.¹⁰ Give help! Let us act wisely concerning it, lest it multiply, and it has come to pass, when war happens, that it has been joined, even it, to those hating us, and has fought against us, and has gone up out of the land."¹¹ And they set princes of tribute over it, so as to afflict it with their burdens, and it builds the store-cities of Pithom and Rameses for Pharaoh;¹² and as they afflict it, so it multiplies, and so it breaks forth, and they are distressed because of the sons of Israel;¹³ and the Egyptians cause the sons of Israel to serve with rigor,¹⁴ and make their lives bitter in hard service, in clay, and in brick, and in every [kind] of service in the field; all their service in which they have served [is] with rigor.

¹⁵ And the king of Egypt speaks to the midwives, the Hebrewesses (of whom the name of the first [is] Shiphrah, and the name of the second Puah),¹⁶ and says, "When you cause the Hebrew women to bear, and have looked on the children, if it [is] a son, then you have put him to death; and if it [is] a daughter, then she has lived."¹⁷ And the midwives fear God, and have not done as the king of Egypt has spoken to them, and they keep the boys alive;¹⁸ and the king of Egypt calls for the midwives and says to them, "Why have you done this thing, and keep the boys alive?"¹⁹ And the midwives say to Pharaoh, "Because the Hebrew women [are] not as the Egyptian women, for they [are] lively; before the midwife comes to them—they have borne!"²⁰ And God does good to the midwives, and the people multiply, and are very mighty;²¹ and it comes to pass, because the midwives have feared God, that He makes households for them;²² and Pharaoh lays a charge on all his people, saying, "Every son who is born—you cast him into the River, and every daughter you keep alive."