| 章 |
| 1:1 |
These are the names of the sons of Israel who went to Egypt with Jacob, each with his family:
|
| 1:2 |
Reuben, Simeon, Levi and Judah;
|
| 1:3 |
Issachar, Zebulun and Benjamin;
|
| 1:4 |
Dan and Naphtali; Gad and Asher.
|
| 1:5 |
The descendants of Jacob numbered seventy in all; Joseph was already in Egypt.
|
| 1:6 |
Now Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation died,
|
| 1:7 |
but the Israelites were fruitful and multiplied greatly and became exceedingly numerous, so that the land was filled with them.
|
| 1:8 |
Then a new king, who did not know about Joseph, came to power in Egypt.
|
| 1:9 |
"Look," he said to his people, "the Israelites have become much too numerous for us.
|
| 1:10 |
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."
|
| 1:11 |
So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh.
|
| 1:12 |
But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread; so the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites
|
| 1:13 |
and worked them ruthlessly.
|
| 1:14 |
They made their lives bitter with hard labor in brick and mortar and with all kinds of work in the fields; in all their hard labor the Egyptians used them ruthlessly.
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| 1:15 |
The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah,
|
| 1:16 |
"When you help the Hebrew women in childbirth and observe them on the delivery stool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her live."
|
| 1:17 |
The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live.
|
| 1:18 |
Then the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, "Why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?"
|
| 1:19 |
The midwives answered Pharaoh, "Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive."
|
| 1:20 |
So God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous.
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| 1:21 |
And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own.
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| 1:22 |
Then Pharaoh gave this order to all his people: "Every boy that is born you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live."
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