Open English Translation EXO Chapter 1

1 These are the names of Yisra’el’s descendants who accompanied Yacob (Jacob) when he moved his household to Egypt:[ref] 2 Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Yehudah, 3 Yissashkar (Issachar), Zebulun, Benyamin, 4 Dan, Naftali, Gad, and Asher. 5 At that time, Yacob had a total of seventy descendants (including Yosef and his sons who were already in Egypt.)

6 As the years progressed, Yosef and his brothers died—all of that generation, 7 but they’d had many children who went on to have their own children and grandchildren, and so they became a large and powerful group there in Egypt.[ref]

8 Eventually a new king came to power in Egypt (Mitsrayim) who had never known Yosef[ref] 9 and he told his people, “Listen, those descendants of Israel are becoming more numerous and powerful than us. 10 So, let’s deal wisely with them, in case they continue to multiply. Then if war was to break out, they could easily take the other side and fight against us, and then leave our country.”[ref] 11 Then they appointed overseers to work them in slave gangs, and using them as forced labour, they built the store cities at Pithon and Rameses for Far’oh (Pharaoh). 12 However, the more they oppressed them, the more they multiplied and spread out, and the more the Egyptians came to dread the Israelis. 13 So they made the Israelis work long, hard hours, 14 and they made their lives bitter with the hard slavery. They were forced to make mortar and bricks, as well as all kinds of slave labour in the fields—all the work they had to do was strenuous and tiring.

15 Then the king of Egypt spoke to Shiphrah and Puah, the two Hebrew midwives, 16 saying, “When you assist the Hebrew women as midwives, as you sit there on your stool, if you see that it’s a male, do something so he’ll die, but if it’s a female, then let her live.” 17 But the midwives were godly women and didn’t do according to what the Egyptian king had instructed them, and they let the boys live. 18 So the king called the midwives back, and he demanded, “Why have you done that and let their sons live?”

19 “Because the Hebrew women aren’t like Egyptian women,” the midwives answered. “They’re more active and give birth before the midwife even gets to them.” 20 So God rewarded the midwives, and meanwhile, the people continued to increase in number and become more powerful, 21 and because the midwives had demonstrated their desire to obey God, he gave them families of their own. 22 Then Far’oh commanded all of his people, “You all need to toss every newborn boy into the river, but you can let the girls live.”[ref]