The Preacher's Bible

Now these are the names of the sons of Israel, who came into Egypt (every man and his household came with Jacob): ²Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah, ³Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin, ⁴Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher. ⁵All the souls who came out of Jacob’s body were seventy souls, and Joseph was in Egypt already. ⁶Joseph died, as did all his brothers, and all that generation. ⁷The children of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and grew exceedingly mighty; and the land was filled with them.

⁸Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who didn’t know Joseph. ⁹He said to his people, “Behold, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we. ¹⁰Come, let’s deal wisely with them, lest they multiply, and it happen that when any war breaks out, they also join themselves to our enemies and fight against us, and escape out of the land.” ¹¹Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with their burdens. They built storage cities for Pharaoh: Pithom and Raamses. ¹²But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and the more they spread out. They started to dread the children of Israel. ¹³The Egyptians ruthlessly made the children of Israel serve, ¹⁴and they made their lives bitter with hard service in mortar and in brick, and in all kinds of service in the field, all their service, in which they ruthlessly made them serve.

¹⁵The king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, of whom the name of the one was Shiphrah, and the name of the other Puah, ¹⁶and he said, “When you perform the duty of a midwife to the Hebrew women, and see them on the birth stool, if it is a son, then you shall kill him; but if it is a daughter, then she shall live.” ¹⁷But the midwives feared God, and didn’t do what the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the baby boys alive. ¹⁸The king of Egypt called for the midwives, and said to them, “Why have you done this thing and saved the boys alive?”

¹⁹The midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women aren’t like the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.”

²⁰God dealt well with the midwives, and the people multiplied, and grew very mighty. ²¹Because the midwives feared God, he gave them families. ²²Pharaoh commanded all his people, saying, “You shall cast every son who is born into the river, and every daughter you shall save alive.”