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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 exceedingly fruitful; they multiplied greatly, increased in numbers and became so numerous that the land was filled with them.
1:8  Then a new king, to whom Joseph meant nothing, came to power in Egypt.
1:9  ‘Look,’ he said to his people, ‘the Israelites have become far 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 labour, 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 harsh labour in brick and mortar and with all kinds of work in the fields; in all their harsh labour, the Egyptians worked them ruthlessly.
1:15  The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah,
1:16  ‘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.’
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.
1:21  And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own.
1:22  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.’