⁵ “You must then say in the presence of the Lord your God, ‘My ancestor Jacob was a wandering Aramean who went to live as a foreigner in Egypt. His family arrived few in number, but in Egypt they became a large and mighty nation.

¹² And so a whole nation came from this one man who was as good as dead—a nation with so many people that, like the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore, there is no way to count them.

¹⁷ “As the time drew near when God would fulfill his promise to Abraham, the number of our people in Egypt greatly increased.

³⁷ That night the people of Israel left Rameses and started for Succoth. There were about 600,000 men,^[a] plus all the women and children.

⁷ But their descendants, the Israelites, had many children and grandchildren. In fact, they multiplied so greatly that they became extremely powerful and filled the land.

⁸ Eventually, a new king came to power in Egypt who knew nothing about Joseph or what he had done. ⁹ He said to his people, “Look, the people of Israel now outnumber us and are stronger than we are.

³ “I am God,^[a] the God of your father,” the voice said. “Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for there I will make your family into a great nation.

¹⁶ And I will give you so many descendants that, like the dust of the earth, they cannot be counted!