The Escape from Egypt (Exodus)
1
These are the names of Israel’s sons who went into Egypt with Jacob and their families: 2 Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, 3 Issachar, Zebulun, Benjamin, 4 Dan, Naphtali, Gad, and Asher. 5 {At that time}, Jacob had 70 total descendants (including Joseph {and his sons} who were already in Egypt.) 6 {After some time,} Joseph and his brothers and everyone else in their family who lived at that time died. 7 {Jacob’s} descendants gave birth to many children. The number of his descendants grew, and they became extremely strong. {As a result, there were so many of them that} they were everywhere in Egypt.8 {However, sometime later,} a new king began to rule in Egypt. He did not know about {all the good things} Joseph {had done for the people of Egypt}. 9 He said to his people, “Look {at what has happened}! There are so many Israelites that they outnumber us Egyptians! 10 We must find a way to control them! If we do not do that, there will be more of them. Then, if enemies attack us, the Israelites will join with our enemies and fight against us, and they will escape from our land.” 11 So the king and his officials put masters over groups of Israelite workers to cause them to suffer very much by making them work very hard. So the Israelites built the cities Pithom and Rameses to store goods for the king. 12 But the more the Egyptians treated the Israelites badly, the more the Israelites had children, and the more they spread throughout Egypt. Therefore, the Egyptians were distressed because of the Israelites. 13 The Egyptians ruthlessly made the Israelites work 14 and made their lives miserable by forcing them to work hard. The Israelites built with bricks and mortar and did all sorts of agricultural work. The Egyptians ruthlessly gave them all sorts of work.
15 Now there were two Hebrew midwives named Shiphrah and Puah. The king of Egypt said to them, 16 “When you help a Hebrew woman have a baby, pay attention right as the baby is born. If the baby is a boy, you must kill him. If the baby is a girl, you may let her live.” 17 But the midwives were afraid {to disobey} God. So they did not obey what the king told them to do. They allowed the baby boys to live. 18 So the king summoned the two midwives and asked them, “Why are you doing this? Why are you letting the baby boys live?”
19 One of the midwives replied to the king, “{We have not been able to obey you} because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women. Because they are energetic, the Hebrew women have their babies before we arrive to help them.”
20 (Therefore, the {Hebrew} people became numerous and very strong.) God acted kindly to the midwives 21 because they were afraid {to disobey} him. He gave them each a husband and children.
22 Then the king ordered all the Egyptian people, “Throw every {Hebrew} baby boy that is born into the Nile River! However, you can allow the baby girls to live.”