So Joseph bought all the land in Egypt for Pharaoh. The Egyptians, one and all, sold their fields, because the famine was too severe for them. The land became Pharaoh’s,

and Joseph reduced the people to servitude, from one end of Egypt to the other.

So Joseph established it as a law concerning land in Egypt—still in force today—that a fifth of the produce belongs to Pharaoh. It was only the land of the priests that did not become Pharaoh’s.

Now the Israelites settled in Egypt in the region of Goshen. They acquired property there and were fruitful and increased greatly in number.

Jacob lived in Egypt seventeen years, and the years of his life were a hundred and forty-seven.

When the time drew near for Israel to die, he called for his son Joseph and said to him, “If I have found favor in your eyes, put your hand under my thigh and promise that you will show me kindness and faithfulness. Do not bury me in Egypt,

but when I rest with my fathers, carry me out of Egypt and bury me where they are buried.” “I will do as you say,” he said.

“Now then, your two sons born to you in Egypt before I came to you here will be reckoned as mine; Ephraim and Manasseh will be mine, just as Reuben and Simeon are mine.

taking a full forty days, for that was the time required for embalming. And the Egyptians mourned for him seventy days.

So Joseph went up to bury his father. All Pharaoh’s officials accompanied him—the dignitaries of his court and all the dignitaries of Egypt—

When the Canaanites who lived there saw the mourning at the threshing floor of Atad, they said, “The Egyptians are holding a solemn ceremony of mourning.” That is why that place near the Jordan is called Abel Mizraim.

After burying his father, Joseph returned to Egypt, together with his brothers and all the others who had gone with him to bury his father.

The Death of Joseph

Joseph stayed in Egypt, along with all his father’s family. He lived a hundred and ten years

So Joseph died at the age of a hundred and ten. And after they embalmed him, he was placed in a coffin in Egypt.

The Israelites Oppressed

These are the names of the sons of Israel who went to Egypt with Jacob, each with his family:

The descendants of Jacob numbered seventy in all; Joseph was already in Egypt.

Then a new king, to whom Joseph meant nothing, came to power in Egypt.

But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread; so the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites

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.

The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah,

The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live.

Then the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, “Why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?”

The midwives answered Pharaoh, “Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive.”

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.

Looking this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.