Exodus 1:8-22

Christian Standard Bible

⁸ A new king, who did not know about 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} Come, let’s deal shrewdly with them; otherwise they will multiply further, and when war breaks out, they will 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 The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives—the first, whose name was Shiphrah, and the second, whose name was Puah— ¹⁶ “When you help the Hebrew women give birth, observe them as they deliver. If the child is a son, kill him, but if it’s a daughter, she may live.” ¹⁷ The midwives, however, feared God^(G) and did not do as the king of Egypt had told them;^(H) they let the boys live. ¹⁸ So the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, “Why have you done this and let the boys live?”

¹⁹ The midwives said to Pharaoh, “The Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife can get to them.”^(I)

²⁰ So God was good to the midwives,^(J) and the people multiplied and became very numerous. ²¹ Since the midwives feared God, he gave them families.^{(K) 22} Pharaoh then commanded all his people, “You must throw every son born to the Hebrews into the Nile, but let every daughter live.”^(L)