1:1 These are the names of the sons of Israel who went to Egypt with Jacob, each with his family:
1:2 Reuben, Simeon, Levi and Judah;
1:3 Issachar, Zebulun and Benjamin;
1:4 Dan and Naphtali; Gad and Asher.
1:5 The descendants of Jacob numbered seventy* in all; Joseph was already in Egypt. / *Masoretic Text (see also Gen. 46:27); Dead Sea Scrolls and Septuagint (see also Acts 7:14 and note at Gen. 46:27) seventy-five
1:6 Now Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation died,
1:7 but the Israelites were exceedingly fruitful; they multiplied greatly, increased in numbers and became so numerous that the land was filled with them.
1:8 Then a new king, to whom Joseph meant nothing, came to power in Egypt.
1:9 “Look,” he said to his people, “the Israelites have become far too numerous for us.
1:10 Come, we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country.”
1:11 So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh.
1:12 But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread; so the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites
1:13 and worked them ruthlessly.
1:14 They made their lives bitter with harsh labor in brick and mortar and with all kinds of work in the fields; in all their harsh labor the Egyptians worked them ruthlessly.
1:15 The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah,
1:16 “When you are helping the Hebrew women during childbirth on the delivery stool, if you see that the baby is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her live.”
1:17 The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live.
1:18 Then the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, “Why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?”
1:19 The midwives answered Pharaoh, “Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive.”
1:20 So God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous.
1:21 And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own.
1:22 Then Pharaoh gave this order to all his people: “Every Hebrew boy that is born you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live.”