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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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Issachar, Zebulun and Benjamin;
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The descendants of Jacob numbered seventy in all; Joseph was already in Egypt.
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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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Then a new king, to whom Joseph meant nothing, came to power in Egypt.
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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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But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread; so the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites
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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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“When you are helping the Hebrew women during childbirth on the delivery stool, if you see that the baby is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her 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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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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But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile.
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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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She opened it and saw the baby. He was crying, and she felt sorry for him. “This is one of the Hebrew babies,” she said.
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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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Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this baby and nurse him for me, and I will pay you.” So the woman took the baby and nursed him.
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When the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh’s daughter and he became her son. She named him Moses, saying, “I drew him out of the water.”
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Looking this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.
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The next day he went out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, “Why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew?”
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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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When Pharaoh heard of this, he tried to kill Moses, but Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in Midian, where he sat down by a well.
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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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Zipporah gave birth to a son, and Moses named him Gershom, saying, “I have become a foreigner in a foreign land.”
