⁸ A new king, who had not known Joseph, came to power in Egypt. ⁹ He said to his people, “Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and powerful than we are.^{(A) 10} Let us deal shrewdly with them; otherwise they will multiply further, and if war breaks out, they may join our enemies, fight against us, and leave the country.”^{(B) 11} So the Egyptians assigned taskmasters over the Israelites to oppress them with forced labor.^(C) They built Pithom and Rameses as supply cities^(D) for Pharaoh. ¹² But the more they oppressed them, the more they multiplied and spread so that the Egyptians came to dread^[a] the Israelites. ¹³ They worked the Israelites ruthlessly^{(E) 14} and made their lives bitter with difficult labor in brick and mortar and in all kinds of fieldwork. They ruthlessly imposed all this work on them.^(F)

¹⁵ Then the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, ¹⁶ “When you help the Hebrew women give birth, observe them as they deliver.^[b] If the child is a son, kill him, but if it’s a daughter, she may live.”