Exodus 1:1-14

The Voice

1 These are the names of Israel’s sons—the ones who traveled from Canaan and entered into Egypt with Jacob during the great famine. Each of these men arrived in Egypt with his family:

² Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah;

³ Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin;

⁴ Dan and Naphtali, Gad, and Asher.

⁵ At that time, Jacob had 70 children and grandchildren. All of them came to Egypt, except for Joseph; he was already there.^{[a] 6} Joseph died, and so did all of his brothers. It was not long before that entire generation was gone. ⁷ But the people of Israel were prolific; they had children easily, and their numbers increased rapidly. As their numbers grew so did their strength. Eventually, they filled the land.

⁸ One day, a new king came to power and ruled over Egypt, but this king had no knowledge of Joseph.

¹¹ So the Egyptian authorities enslaved the Israelites and appointed cruel slave drivers over them to oppress them with hard, back-breaking labor. They forced them to build the storage cities of Pithom and Raamses for Pharaoh.

¹² But the harder the slave drivers pushed the Israelites, the more rapidly they had children and spread throughout the land. Because of this, the Egyptians grew to detest the Israelites even more ¹³ and violently forced them to work until they were sore and tired—far beyond exhaustion. ¹⁴ The Egyptians made life bitter for all those Israelites forced to mix mortar, make bricks, and do all types of grueling work in the fields. They tormented their Israelite slaves until all the work was done.