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The Israelites Oppressed
These are the names of the sons of Israel who went to Egypt with Jacob, each with his family:
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Now Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation died,
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but the Israelites were exceedingly fruitful; they multiplied greatly, increased in numbers and became so numerous that the land was filled with them.
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“Look,” he said to his people, “the Israelites have become far too numerous for us.
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Come, we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country.”
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So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh.
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and worked them ruthlessly.
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They made their lives bitter with harsh labor in brick and mortar and with all kinds of work in the fields; in all their harsh labor the Egyptians worked them ruthlessly.
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The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live.
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Then the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, “Why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?”
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So God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous.
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And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own.
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Then Pharaoh gave this order to all his people: “Every Hebrew boy that is born you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live.”
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The Birth of Moses
Now a man of the tribe of Levi married a Levite woman,
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His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him.
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Then Pharaoh’s daughter went down to the Nile to bathe, and her attendants were walking along the riverbank. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her female slave to get it.
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Then his sister asked Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?”
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Moses Flees to Midian
One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people.
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The man said, “Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid and thought, “What I did must have become known.”
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Some shepherds came along and drove them away, but Moses got up and came to their rescue and watered their flock.
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When the girls returned to Reuel their father, he asked them, “Why have you returned so early today?”
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“And where is he?” Reuel asked his daughters. “Why did you leave him? Invite him to have something to eat.”
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Moses agreed to stay with the man, who gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses in marriage.
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During that long period, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God.
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God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob.
