EXODUS
CHAPTER 1
1 These be the names of the sons of Israel, that entered into Egypt with Jacob; all entered with their households;
2 Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah,
3 Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin,
4 Dan, and Naphtali, Gad, and Asher.
5 Therefore all the souls of them that went out of the hip of Jacob were seventy and five. Forsooth Joseph was in Egypt;
6 and when he was dead, and all his brethren, and all his kindred,
7 the sons of Israel* increased, and were multiplied as burgeoning, and they were made strong greatly, and filled the land.
8 A new king, that knew not Joseph, rose [up] in the meantime on Egypt,
9 and said to his people, Lo! the people of the sons of Israel is much, and stronger than we;
10 come ye, wisely oppress we it, lest peradventure it be multiplied; and lest, if battle riseth against us, it be added to our enemies, and go out of the land, when we be overcome.
11 And so he made masters of works sovereigns to them, that they should torment them with charges. And they made [the] cities of tabernacles, either of treasures, as it is in Hebrew, to Pharaoh, Pithom, and Raamses.
12 And by how much they oppressed them, by so much they were multiplied, and increased the more.
13 And the Egyptians hated the sons of Israel, and tormented, and scorned them;
14 and they brought their life to bitterness, by hard works of clay and of tilestone, and by all servage, by which they were oppressed in the works of [the] earth.
15 Forsooth the king of Egypt said to the midwives of Hebrews, of which one was called Shiphrah, [and] the tother Puah;
16 and he commanded to them, When ye shall do the office of midwives to [the] Hebrew women, and the time of child-bearing shall come, if it is a knave child, slay ye him; if it is a woman child, keep ye it.
17 But the midwives dreaded God, and did not by the commandment of the king of Egypt, but kept the knave children.
18 To the which called to him, the king said, What is this thing that ye would do, that ye would keep the knave children?
19 The which answered, Hebrew women be not as the women of Egypt, for they have knowing of the craft of midwifing, and childed before that we come to them.
20 Therefore God did well to the midwives; and the people increased, and was comforted greatly.
21 And for the midwives dreaded God, God builded them houses.
22 Therefore Pharaoh commanded all his people, and said, Whatever thing of male kind is born to Hebrews, cast ye into the flood; whatever thing of women kind, keep ye.
* CHAPTER 1:7 The phrase ‘sons of Israel’ at times refers to the twelve sons of Jacob (whose name God changed to ‘Israel’), at times to only the Israelite men, and other times to all of the people of Israel, the twelve tribes of Israel, ‘the Israelites’.